Praying for the Election

With the elections coming up, we seem to be bombarded with accusations of failure — failures of our financial system, failures of our government, failures of individuals, and all kinds of failures. I used to be very concerned about elections, and I would often think, well, with so many things wrong we really have to elect the right person to every office. I would get riled up and very disappointed if the right person wasn’t elected.

Since coming to Plainfield, Christian Science has taught me that that is not the right way to look at things; that politics is not the answer. The only place to turn for the solution of our problems is to God, and to following God’s laws.

One of the things that I found many years ago, and that was very helpful to me in this regard, was an article written by Clarence Chadwick in 1905. There is a sentence where he writes, “We can truly welcome the failures of all false systems to bring health and harmony to earth, for these very failures can teach but one lesson and that is, that the only real help comes from God.” This has been very helpful in stopping me from getting all riled up about politics or any other human activities, and to realize that the answer is not to replace one broken human system with another human system. The answer is not to give up our individual freedoms so that another bureaucrat can tell us what to do. Those are not the answers. The answer is to individually and collectively obey God’s law. And if, individually or collectively, we need to experience failure to bring us closer to God, then that failure is a good thing.

I am so grateful that I no longer fear the failure of any of these human systems around us, because anything that brings us closer to God is a good thing. I look forward to me, and everyone in this world, getting closer to God no matter how they get there. I’m so grateful for Christian Science for teaching me to place all of my confidence only in God and in nothing or no one else.