Everyone is looking for a Savior.
The innate longing of the human heart to find meaning beyond ourselves and seek something transcendent is God-given. Religions, even false ones, are based on an innate desire for connection. That desire can only be truly fulfilled by God; that desire of the heart has sometimes been referred to a “God-shaped hole.” Ecclesiastes 3:11 outlines the fact that God placed eternity in man’s heart. God made humanity for His eternal purpose, and only God can fulfill our desires.
However, many of us ignore this hole or attempt to fill it with things other than God. None of us are immune. Jeremiah 17:9 describes the condition of our hearts, "The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” The New Testament reiterates by asserting that, “The sinful mind is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so” (Romans 8:7) and Paul further teaches that humanity ignores what can be known about God and instead worships anything and everything other than God.
Sadly, too many of us spend our lives looking for something other than God to fill our longing for meaning: business, family, entertainment, and politics come to mind. But in relentlessly pursuing secular things that hold little eternal value, we remain unfulfilled and wonder why our lives never reach a state of satisfaction. There is no doubt that many people pursuing things other than God achieve a measure of “happiness” for a time: Fame. Comfort. Status. Pleasure. Wealth.
But when we consider King Solomon, who had all the riches, success, esteem, and power in the world, we can see clearly that none of those earthly things fulfilled his eternal longing; those things won’t fulfill us either. All that we seek after in this life is vanity, meaning that we seek secular comforts and power in vain because they do not and cannot ever truly satisfy our thirst.
So, what does all of that have to do with politics? Everything. Just as we fruitlessly try to fill our personal lives with false happiness from secular pursuits, we also tend to fill our political lives with false saviors. The political saviors we seek are not the saviors we should be looking for. Trump isn’t. Biden isn’t. Pelosi isn’t. DeSantis isn’t. There is no political savior on either side of the aisle. Depending on worldview and ideology, there are better and worse choices, to be sure. But it doesn’t matter which direction we look, each of them will disappoint us because they are each fallible. We should accept that fact and act accordingly. We should argue over ideas rather than fixate on personalities. We should consider political contests as a zero-sum game; choose whom you deem as the best person to represent your belief system for each race and support them. Support those who espouse your beliefs with your time and your money and your vote, but don’t make the mistake of assigning dictatorial or prophetic status to those who don’t deserve that title or level of respect. Don’t assume politicians know better or more than you do or even that they have pure intentions. Don’t put people on a pedestal that they don’t deserve. When we, falsely, put our hope in political candidates or elected officials, we will be continually disappointed and disillusioned. They will fail us because they’re not capable of saving us. When we are searching for someone to rescue us for our earthly needs, we shouldn’t put our faith in any politician or any person. In short, we’re looking in the wrong place for a savior.
Romans 1:21 states, “For although they knew God, they did not honor him but they became futile in their thinking, and their foolish hearts were darkened.” Let our hearts not be darkened by giving the throne to anyone less than the only one who deserves the crown.
Stephanie Holden Smith is an experienced policy analyst, political commentator, and public speaker. Smith has worked and volunteered in Governmental Affairs in Alabama since 1997, including lobbying for a Fortune 500 company and serving as Deputy Director of Finance for the State of Alabama. She is currently the principal of Thatcher Coalition LLC. To contact Stephanie, please go to http://thatchercoalition.com. The views and opinions expressed here are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the policy or position of 1819 News. To comment, please send an email with your name and contact information Commentary@1819News.com.
