Once a father and son were watching the news together, and since it was political season—a primary was looming in their state—not only was the news crammed full of information about the candidates, so also half the commercials were paid political ads, crammed full of lack of information about the candidates.
Staring glumly at the screen, the son asked his father. “Dad, what are you wishing for right now?”
“A Doritos commercial,” he replied.
“You know, Dad, I know exactly how you feel. You have taught me well. If I see one more congressman with his shirt sleeves rolled up by some consultant, I think I will run from the room screaming. But what you haven’t taught me yet is why we should bother voting, when these are the only options. Why go to the restaurant, if this is the menu?”
His father grinned at him, and said, “Son, I can’t say that what you are suggesting has not occurred to me. But this is what I have worked out. It is not exactly like a restaurant, but more like a meeting where we all give our counsel and advice. Multiple meals are not ordered and consumed, but rather multiple perspectives are offered, where only one of them can be followed.”
“Okay,” his son said.
“And not only are we in the minority, as far as the two main parties are concerned, but we frequently are in the position of voting for obscure, third-party candidates, or, as I frequently do, writing in the name of your uncle. Don’t tell him.”
“Okay,” his son laughed. “I won’t tell him. But this is my question. Why do you bother driving down there to cast a vote that nobody will count?”
“Because while the people running this system have an idolatrous faith in their system, I am participating in it as a believer in God. I don’t care if they count my vote. I would actually rather they didn’t. I want God to count my vote.”
“What will He do when He counts the votes?”
“That’s up to Him. But when He does whatever it is He will do to our nation, there are two places I don’t want to be. I don’t want to be among those who took ten talents from Him and squandered them. Neither do I want to be the one who took and buried the one talent because I was a quitter. He is not a hard master, but He is to those who think Him so.”
“So when He intervenes . . .”
“I want to be found at my station, doing my duty. Whether or not it makes any sense.”