If Power Corrupts, Why Do We Place So Much Hope in Our Leaders?

Given the way my social media apps are looking, it’s clearly time to, for the most part, shut them down. As I’ve mentioned before, I unfollowed almost all political outlets a while back. But with something as uproarious as the Ford/Kavanaugh debacle, articles get through my feeds, and in no time, I’ve no idea where my in real life friends have disappeared to, but I become privy to petty facts such as Brett Kavanaugh having thrown ice when he was a teenager.

Did I ever tell you about the time when my best friend and I were sipping hot chocolate on a cold winter day, and how she started choking and how I got a case of the giggles so bad I nearly wet my pants? It was terrible for her. Terribly funny for me. At one point, she really did seem to be having trouble breathing, and I may have became a little concerned, perhaps, maybe, I don’t remember, but mostly … I found her sputtering and struggle to breathe too hilarious to even consider helping her out. Never crossed my mind, actually. 

Also, her older brother once put her younger brother in the dryer and turned it on. Full blast.

Ca-clunk …. Ca-clunk …

Ahem. Where was I? Oh yeah …

It’s junior high all over again out there. Actually, scratch that. It’s more like first grade. We have literally discussed farts with a Supreme Court nominee, people. It makes me wonder, with head down in shame, what the rest of the world must think of us. My six and four year old grandsons who love to talk about their anatomy and what comes out of it could have easily participated in the conversations that have taken place. In the Senate. That’s how immature we’ve become. An investigation into what began as a serious allegation has crumbled to a pile of uncorroborated, juvenile bull puckey.

Power corrupts.

If that’s true, and by all appearances, it is, then in what or whom are we to place our hope?

I’m convinced the craving for socialism in America is the result of people looking to the government for salvation. Everything is free in a socialist state, right? It’d be like living with our parents until we die. We’d be fed, watered, sheltered, educated, and medically tended to if everyone threw their money into a pot and trusted the government to divvy it up – no matter who worked the hardest or longest.

For the people, socialism is a way to mooch. For the government, socialism is a way to own and control. For all the outcry about how slavery is such a horrible atrocity, it’s strange how we embrace it, as long as it looks a wee bit different than a white man beating black people to hurry and pluck more cotton. Where is the freedom in working your arse off, throwing the earnings into a pot, and letting your lazy neighbor’s hands dig in? Where is the freedom in big government? So big, that your food and housing and medical care are owned and dictated by those who have been corrupted by power? Freedom, at that point, doesn’t exist. Only slavery exists.

Like the black slaves of the past, I don’t see any hope in working for someone else and never seeing the proceeds go into my mouth or the mouth of my babes. 

If anyone is not willing to work, let him not eat. (2 Thess. 3:10) And I think we could also say have a roof over his head, be educated, or have health care. That’s not to say there’s never a call for welfare, but it is to say that America has become far too socialist in their dealings with the people’s tax money. We’ve allowed others in who are not willing to embrace the American dream of work hard, be free. We permit anyone to cross the border, for fear of “discriminating”, and allow them, and even our natural born citizens, to feast off the earnings of other hard working men and women.

All that to say …

If power corrupts, why do we continue to place our hope in where the power lies?

This might come as a shock, but the government doesn’t actually care about you. Or me. God, on the other hand, has said that He loves us with an everlasting love (Jer. 31:3). And the Bible says God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life. (John 3: 16)

Of course, that doesn’t promise a cushy, earthly life. But it does promise an eternal destiny lived in peace, love, provision, and worship of Him who saved … if we believe.

The point is: earth and earthly governments are not where it’s at. We can (and should) strive for peace and provision, but the truth is, until Christ returns or until we die and go to Heaven, life will be messy. And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not alarmed, for this must take place, but the end is not yet. (Matt. 24:6)

Our hope, then, is not in government. For where power is, therein lies corruption. But where God is, there is everything our human hearts crave. Do I think America has the best governmental system on earth? Yes – if we are referring to what the Founding Fathers intended. But as a Christian, the US government is not where my ultimate hope lies. My ultimate hope lies in the fact that one day, Christ will come riding in on a white horse like the King He is and make everything right.

That doesn’t mean I become lazy in my daily work or never fight for justice, for the poor, for the hurting, for the marginalized. It just means that when I hope, I hope in the King of kings, knowing that earthly kings’ hearts are like streams of water in the hand of the Lord, and He turns them wherever He will. (Prov. 21:1)

If power corrupts, where should we place our hope and trust?

For the non-Christian, it appears as though the consensus is government. For Christians, we hope and trust in the name of the Lord our God. And in that trust, we find peace and the courage to keep on keepin’ on. Even if it means putting up with juvenile  politicians with ulterior motives.

••Photo by KEEM IBARRA on Unsplash