Welcome to November!
I’ve spent the past five weeks in the soft rebrand of this Substack—moving from On Life and Leadership to No Manual for This. A year into posting, I realized that the main shape these posts take is one of how we relate to each other and learn as we go. So much of life, regardless of conventional wisdom, has to get learned by doing.
I am also keeping a rough 80/20 rule. Eighty percent of the posts are decidedly in the No Manual lane and 20 percent can be a wildcard. This is the wildcard (though it is the first of six posts where I do it, so a little under 20%).
I want to write about the quiet life—on the day before midterms.
I live in Texas—where half a billion dollars has been spent on the Senate race alone. My sample ballot contains 104 races—with 3/4 of them judicial races. Most of the names I know nothing about. The word I send via text the most right now is “stop” as I try to remove myself from as many political spam messages as possible. Like whack-a-mole, I can’t seem to get rid of them. Every time the family sits down to watch an LSU game, we get assaulted with attack ads about greenhouse gases, the morality of eating meat, how many houses a candidate has, gender reassignment surgery, who is richer than the other, and why I will vote for X person if I love God, love my country, love my family, and want to pull the world back from the brink.
That’s a lot of pressure.
In fact, the intensity of feelings that many have around each election cycle makes me wonder if I’m missing something. Maybe I should be louder. Maybe I should preach more combatively. Maybe I should put signs in my yard. Gosh, maybe I don’t love God or my country enough, because the people who do retweet posts and text podcasts to their friends and bring the topics up at their breakfasts and their family dinner. I’m sure I’m the problem.
Years back—a few administrations ago—I was reading a passage that I had heard before but had not actually done much with on a personal level.
First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. (1 Tim 2:1-2)
“All people,” not just “my people”?
I thought to myself, “Hmm. I don’t think I have any consistent approach to how I pray for the people in authority around me.” So I began my “Pray for Governing Authorities” prayer list for Saturdays. It isn’t fancy, and writing this post made me realize it was outdated (it is now updated)—but I had not taken the passage seriously enough to put into my life. Full disclosure, it doesn’t include 104 races—that’d be a lot. But it does include a president, senators, congresspeople, and at least one board of education member and a judge. I will also, at times, pray for our school district’s superintendent. Additionally, I take a brief time to pray for governments not in my own country—that the Gospel comes to the Chinese Communist Party, and for the tensions in Venezuela, Iran, and Ukraine. I often don’t know exactly what to say, so I just pray what I think makes the most sense.
The end of that passage, though, stands out—“that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way.” I like the sounds of that, but is it possible? It seems like nobody in a political party desires that for anyone. Everything is urgent, everything is life or death, everything has one right answer.
I think peaceful and quiet is possible. Part of it can be related to a cultural climate and those in leadership, yes, and this is one aspect of our prayer. Good people in leadership bring peace, and bad people cause stress (Prov 29:2). My problem is I often don’t know the good guys from the bad ones—they are both simultaneously the good (by their own definition) and the bad (by their opponents, or sometimes their own party). It’s unnecessarily contentious.
And that contentiousness, far too often, leaks into churches—which is where I’ve served in leadership for over 17 years.
I have friends and family who have voted Republican, Democrat, independent, and convictionally abstained. I’ve worshipped alongside a senator who served faithfully in kids ministry when in town and was later primaried. I played Settlers of Catan with leaders of state government and faced the full force of campaign management while trading wheat and ore. I spoke to my church one morning, saying that the character of a Republican candidate does not mean it aligns with all Christians. A Democratic mayoral candidate was present that morning (didn’t know at the time), learning about what goes on in churches in the area. I was preaching at about the same time someone decided to start shooting law enforcement officers roughly six miles away. I was slotted to preach the Sunday after Charlie Kirk was murdered and knew how we approached that morning would make some people glad, some people unhappy, and still others would be ambivalent.
And that—the covenant community marked by the grace of Jesus—is the community I love. I love it today and will continue to. It’s full of varied opinions and big emotions. It’s full of disagreement. If peaceful and quiet could only be attained by the current cultural climate, we’d all be doomed. Some can’t find peace in their family gatherings, and we think the government might fully provide it?
There’s a very, very old church community (close to the time of Jesus) that joyfully let their property get plundered because they knew they weren’t built for this world (Heb 10:34). They visited their friends in prison and suffered persecution together. While they probably didn’t like it, they were encouraged to persevere and receive the inheritance God has for them. They seemed different.
That’s how I know that peaceful and quiet is much more than just what goes on around me. It’s also about what goes on within me. If I can’t be settled on the inside, I’ll never be settled. And if I’m settled internally, I won’t be swayed by the outcomes I am happy or unhappy with. I’ll be able to be peaceful and quiet because my heart is secure and my God is sovereign. I’m built for something different.
That’s my hope.
My prayer and confession for the midterms. Maybe you can join:
Father,
At times I find myself consumed—consumed with doubt, anger, frustration, and misplaced emotions. I long for outcomes that may not be your will, and am tempted to treat my neighbor with contempt if I find we disagree. I let my heart wander to places that are not peaceful and quiet, and can spend more time worrying, angry, or frustrated than I do praying. I forget the character and presence of Jesus and his grace toward me.
For that—for all I remember and the many sins I don’t—forgive me. Restore my confidence in you and help me to deal with my own heart rather than the heart of my perceived enemy.
Teach me a better way—the way of Jesus.
I say now, regardless of outcome, that I trust you. You are sovereign. And I resolve to pray for all you put in authority over me. Because, ultimately, it is you who are over me. And you are good.
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