Take Me To Your Leader
Take Me To Your Leader
Trusting God In The Chaos
I’m sure you’ve seen or heard the popular cartoon reference: “Take us to your leader!”
It has been used in countless comics and movies for a quick laugh. The basic idea is that a spaceship lands on Earth, and as the aliens exit the ship, they approach the nearest animal or object and ask to meet its leader. The joke is that whatever animal they approach wouldn’t naturally have a leader.
The origin of this phrase is believed to have come from a 1953 cartoon by Alex Graham in The New Yorker magazine. The cartoon depicted two aliens telling a horse, "Kindly take us to your President!"
After that initial reference, the phrase grew to “Take us to your leader” and has been used in TV and movies. From Superman to Star Wars to Toy Story, and beyond…
So, what about you?
If an alien landed in your yard and approached you, who would they think is your leader?
We find ourselves in the middle of another election season. Right on cue, our country has been thrown into another season of chaos and turbulence; pitting neighbor against neighbor.
We’re told to identify with one party, one candidate, or another. It’s as if it isn’t enough to make our choices based on policies. Campaigns have devolved from candidates standing on their platforms, to parties just trying to out “mudsling” the opponent.
There is a growing trend toward believing and acting as if your party’s candidate is the ultimate, best, borderline-perfect leader.
This trend creates a sense of fear and chaos for our country, our community, and ourselves. It leads us to believe that if our choice doesn’t win, the sky will fall. It is a rhetoric that we live in an all-or-nothing situation.
The negativity coming from all parties, the media, etc. causes us to only see the bad in the “other” side. Any quick look at social media can show you the level of political discourse we currently have. If all we ever hear about our potential leaders is negative and scary, we’ll struggle to not be afraid of the outcome.
Friend, we must stop behaving like a candidate is the most important thing in our lives.
No human leader will be perfect. We are all imperfect, fallen people. Stop thinking that your candidate can do no wrong, and the opponent can do no right.
As we kicked off this new series, Politics of the Kingdom, Pastor Shane reminded us that:
As Christians, we are led by a theocracy- which means we are led and governed by God.
We need to remember that scripture teaches us in Romans 13 - “There is no authority except from God, and those that exist have been instituted by God.”
Keep in mind that Paul wrote that while living under the authority of a terrible, pagan government. If Paul can write those words while living under pagan authority, we can be encouraged that God has the same authority over our human leaders.
We are to live in such a way that God is our ultimate authority. We look to Him for guidance. We trust Him when life feels out of control. We believe that He has our best in mind and a plan to work out His story in our lives.
This does not mean that we should remove ourselves from anything political- not at all. It does mean that we should look to our Heavenly Father for direction in our political choices.
Submit to His authority. Commit to prayerful consideration about every vote that you cast. Does that platform, party, or person best demonstrate surrender to God’s rulership?
Maybe you need to ask yourself that one again:
Does that person best demonstrate the life of someone who has surrendered to God’s rule?
Are they a reflection of what it means to be influenced by Jesus?
Rather than working to make sure your church and your pastor align with your political leanings, we should work to make sure our political leanings align with God’s word.
That might mean that you need to step outside of what you’ve always done to stand firm in who God is.
Ultimately, we want to live in such a way that if a spaceship landed in our yard, there would be no question about who our leader is.
If all your hats, t-shirts, and bumper stickers show an outsider who your political leader is, but that same outsider has no idea what Jesus has done for you… you’re missing something.