The WEIGHT of the WAIT: An Election Eve Reflection

Well, I don’t know about you, but I will surely be glad when this election is over. Don’t get me wrong, it is an important election, and I feel very passionate about the platforms, policies, and personalities that are on the ballot, but regardless of the outcome, my hope will always remain in Jesus Christ, my Lord and Savior. He will forever sit on the throne, regardless of who sits in the White House.

Waiting for anything carries a weight we can’t quite explain.

But the weight I‘ve felt lately is more than a heaviness of waiting on the results of an election. It’s more of a heaviness of waiting on Heaven. A weight in the wait that burdens the heart and troubles the mind, while simultaneously offering a yoke that is light and a peace that passes all understanding. When we wrestle with that weight in the natural, we find chaos and confusion, but when we surrender that weight to a supernatural God, we find rest, peace, and hope in knowing He is in control even when this world spins out of control.

The weight of the wait tells only part of the story. When we wait for Heaven, we experience the weight of glory.

“Now, if we are made for heaven, the desire for our proper place will be already in us, but not yet attached to the true object, and will even appear as the rival of that object […] If a transtemporal, transfinite good is our real destiny, then any other good on which our desire fixes must be in some degree fallacious, must bear at best only a symbolical relation to what will truly satisfy.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The truth of the matter is no matter who wins the election, no power in heaven or on earth can dethrone the real Ruler of it all.

Whether we are waiting on election results, or we are waiting on what those election results will mean for our future, we can know the weight of the wait is not powerful enough to crush us. Whether a succession of power takes place or possession of power is maintained, neither will result in a suppression of power of our Ultimate Authority. Regardless of who is the President of the United States, God will forever be the King of King and Lord of Lords.

“Believers in progress rightly note that in the world of machines the new model supersedes the old; from this they falsely infer a similar kind of supercession in such things as virtue and wisdom.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

Regardless of the outcome of this election, we must continue to bear the weight of the wait — the weight of glory — waiting for the eternal while bearing weight of the natural.

It’s complicated. It’s perplexing. But even the hard can be good, and the weight of the wait can reveal in us and through us our utmost need for a Savior.

“If our religion is something objective, then we must never avert our eyes from those elements in it which seem puzzling or repellent; for it will be precisely the puzzling or the repellent which conceals what we do not yet know and need to know.”

― C.S. Lewis, The Weight of Glory

The weight of the wait goes well beyond Election Day. It extends to Eternity. The weight of Glory is waiting to rescue you and me.

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh. So death is at work in us, but life in you. Since we have the same spirit of faith according to what has been written, “I believed, and so I spoke,” we also believe, and so we also speak, knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence. For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God. So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” ~ 2 Corinthians‬ ‭4:7-18‬ ‭ESV‬‬