Reading
“God is our refuge and strength,
an ever-present help in trouble.
Therefore we will not fear, though the earth give way
and the mountains fall into the heart of the sea,
though its waters roar and foam
and the mountains quake with their surging.
There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy place where the Most High dwells.
God is within her, she will not fall;
God will help her at break of day.
Nations are in uproar, kingdoms fall;
he lifts his voice, the earth melts.
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.
Come and see what the Lord has done,
the desolations he has brought on the earth.
He makes wars cease
to the ends of the earth.
He breaks the bow and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
He says, ‘Be still, and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.’
The Lord Almighty is with us;
the God of Jacob is our fortress.”
Psalm 46
Reflection
As we wake up today, the elections are over. The votes are being counted. Some races may have been called, and some may be too close to call. By the time you read this, we may or may not know who will control Congress for the next two years.
However we may feel about the outcomes of the elections, we still have to choose to step forward into a new day. We have to decide how we are going to live together now that the campaigns have ended. We have to answer the question of who we choose to be in this moment. Dr. Margaret Wheatley asks the question this way:
“Who do you choose to be for this time? Are you willing to use whatever power and influence you have to create islands of sanity that evoke and rely on our best human qualities to create, produce, and persevere?”
We cannot fix the chaos of the world, and yesterday’s elections will not do that, whatever their result. We can, however, choose to live faithfully in this moment and partner with God and other followers of Christ to create islands of sanity. And the reasons we can choose this is because we know, as the Psalmist reminds us, “God is our refuge and strength, an ever-present help in trouble.”
Today, you have the opportunity again to stand in the presence of the God who is always with us and decide to be part of what God is doing in the world. Choose to engage. Choose to break bread with people who think differently than you. Choose to be an embodiment of the love of God in a world that so desperately needs it—an island of sanity amidst the chaos.
Prayer
Ever-present God,
you are with us always.
When the earth shakes,
when nations fall,
when our hope fails,
still you are with us.
On this day after the election,
help us to choose to be,
above all else,
yours—
vessels of your love
for the world you so love,
so that all the world
might know that you are God.
Amen.
