From Buttons, Balloons, Bumper Stickers to Prayer

Politics is in my DNA. Sometimes I’d like to be disinterested, but it comes back like an addiction. There’s a reason for that. When I was a child, my father subscribed to newspapers full of politics and political analysis. Although I found them baffling to decipher, they were interesting nevertheless.

If that wasn’t enough, we ate politics at meals. Well, not exactly, but what was happening in the country was often the subject of dinner conversations between my parents. I remember my father having animated discussions with a man who not only did some farming for my father but who was also active in state and local politics. Not to be outdone, I heard my father once say to him: “I’ve done more for the __________ Party than you have. I have six kids.” His political farmer friend took the ribbing well. After all, his daughter was an only child.

And oh, the summer conventions—crazy hats, noisemakers, speeches, slogans, and promises—all rubberstamped with lots and lots of balloons. Then came the signs, buttons, and bumper stickers. All of it aroused excitement and hope for something new and better.  Didn’t everyone want new and better?

Then it was fun. Now it isn’t.   

This past campaign season has been the worst I’ve experienced in my life. No amount of slogans, promises or red, white, and blue balloons lifted my spirits. I would love to tell you that my faith-walk took me to my knees often, but more often than not, the outrage in my heart regularly flew from my lips. Although my comments were mostly shared with my husband and his with me, I wasn’t part of any solution.

After the startling election, we reviewed our attitudes and pattern of complaining and realized how careless and even sinful we had been in disregarding God’s admonition to pray for our leaders (1 Timothy 2:1).  The ratio of our prayers for them and the election to our complaints was embarrassing. We had been negligent to say the least, and in the face of a widening national polarization, we wanted to be part of the solution, God’s solution.

So this is what we do now.

We have a list of city, county, state, and national public servants who represent the Turner household from City Councilman to President of the United States. Sunday afternoon my husband and I set aside time to pray for one of our elected officials. We’ve borrowed John MacArthur’s list of scriptural qualities of leadership, and we pray for those qualities for that official. Here are the qualities we ask God to instill in each leader:  wholehearted worship of God, righteousness, justice, wisdom, honesty, morality, humility, teachability,  a concern for the security of our communities and country, and courage.

Afterwards we write a letter thanking the public servant for his or her service and for what that person has accomplished, and we also communicate that we have prayed for him or her and the qualities we have asked God to bring into his or her life in even greater abundance.

So far we’ve sent out many letters. To date, we have received one response from a lawmaker who appreciated our prayers and said it wasn’t often that he got letters like ours. We were touched by his note and plan to continue our prayers on behalf of our lawmakers. When we make it through the list, we’ll start over.

What we’ve noticed is that while the climate in the country may still be quite polarized, the Turner household is rarely a political complaint zone anymore. And really, should it be any surprise? It’s hard to criticize people who you are praying for, isn’t it?