Your Vote Counts

State wide only 29.7 of all eligible California voters cast a ballot, about 50% of Tuolumne and Mariposa County registered voters voted, and a mere 28.7 % of Stanislaus county did so (according to http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns/status/). This means 70% of those who were eligible and registered chose to disenfranchise themselves for this election. They exercised their right not to vote, but they also neglected their democratic responsibility.Of course all of them voted, albeit unofficially. They voted to do something else instead of voting. They voted that nothing on the ballot was important. They gave their proxy to a few. I wonder how many of those who didn’t vote would say that living in a democratic society is important to them. After all the USA is the land of the free, the champion of democracy, and still the envy of millions around the world.Voting is about making choices, including choices we might not like or want to make. Voting is about the privilege of having choices to make. Voting, being involved in decision making is a reality of life. Most of our voting, our decision making is of the unofficial kind, which does not make it any less important. There is not a week that goes by where we are not called upon to vote for or against integrity, honesty, transparency, compassion. Married people vote do not just cast a vote for fidelity at the altar but throughout their married lives. Parents continually face choice and decisions regarding family. Every temptation is a commercial vying for your vote. And all of these choices matter a great deal. Think what happens when enough people vote against integrity, or if 70% decide integrity is no longer important enough to go and vote for it? What happens to a family when one or both parents no longer vote for it? I reminded of what God told Cain, “… sin is crouching at the door; and its desire is for you, but you must master it" Genesis 4:7 (NASB). “Cain, you have to vote, you have to decide,’ is what God was essentially telling him. Why? Because how we vote, for what we vote makes a difference.One vote that more and more think is entirely optional is the God vote, whether or not to believe in, trust, and follow God by doing his will. Some do not like the choices; there is only one true, eternal, Almighty God, who has revealed himself in Jesus Christ, on the ballot. And yes, you have the choice not to vote for him. And yes, making no decision is still making a decision. And yes, this is in the big scheme of things, in the long haul the most important vote anyone of us will ever cast. Joshua was keenly aware of this reality when laid out the God vote in front of his family and countrymen, “If serving the LORD seems undesirable to you, then choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your forefathers served beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the LORD" Joshua 24:15 (NIV).We have to live with the consequences of our voting. Every single one of our votes, official and unofficial, has consequences, some of them lifelong, some of them for generations to come, and some of them eternally. We ought to weigh that before we cast our God vote or decide not to choose at all.To God be all glory, especially in our voting. Pastor Hans