The World Has Yet to See... Subscribe to the Devotional

This week's focus: Action

We’ve all heard the phrase, “we don’t know what we’ve got until it’s gone,” and I agree. I recently woke up in the middle of the night with a splitting headache and would have done anything to make the intense pain disappear. While I lay there waiting for the Tylenol to kick in, I thought about what a gift our health is and wondered why I didn’t thank God every day for it. I think the reason is, when we are comfortable, we tend to take things for granted. Whether it’s our health, relationships, or freedoms, we don’t always appreciate what we have—or maybe we do, but deep down, we don’t believe we will lose the things we value most. If hindsight is 20/20, then let what we’ve seen over the past few years serve as a warning that in a blink of an eye, health, relationships, and freedoms can be taken and are not guaranteed.

I spoke to a friend about this and told her one of the ways we could fight for our faith, family, and freedoms is at the ballot box. She didn’t respond as I expected when she said she didn’t plan on voting. I asked her to explain why, and she said, “I’m too busy, and I don’t believe my vote will make a difference.”

My friend is a Christian who knows her Bible, so I asked her, “If the Hebrew people, while enslaved in Egypt, were allowed to vote for or against slavery, would they choose to sit it out because they were too busy making bricks for Pharoah?

Or what about when the Jews were taken captive by King Nebuchadnezzar in Babylon? If, by a miracle, they had the opportunity to vote on the issue of religious freedom, would they refrain, believing their actions wouldn’t matter? Or would the reality of being thrown into a fiery furnace if they refused to bow down and worship a golden image motivate them to act regardless of the outcome?"

If being sold into slavery or executed in a fiery furnace seems outlandish, it’s not. We are experiencing it today; the enemy simply rebranded these evils: human trafficking is modern-day slavery, and abortion has executed millions in the womb. As Christians, we must rise and act. We are to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves (Proverbs 31:8) and rescue those who are unjustly sentenced to die (Proverbs 24:11).

With lives still at risk as each state makes decisions on abortion laws, let it never be said that God’s children didn’t choose to defend the most vulnerable among us by voting against unbiblical policies.

The late American evangelist Dwight L. Moody once said, “The world has yet to see what God can do with a man fully consecrated to Him. By God’s help, I aim to be that man.” Like Moody, we should all desire to be that man. If God can accomplish so much through just one person, imagine what would happen if millions of His children chose to unite in prayer and at the ballot box to seek justice, defend biblical values, and push back against the darkness.

May we not learn to appreciate what we have the hard way.

by: Jennifer McAlister for My Faith Votes