Praise the Lord! Let my whole being praise the Lord! I will praise the Lord with all my life; I will sing praises to my God as long as I live. Don’t trust leaders; don’t trust any human beings— there’s no saving help with them! Their breath leaves them, then they go back to the ground. On that very same day, their plans die too. The person whose help is the God of Jacob— the person whose hope rests on the Lord their God— is truly happy!                                                         Psalm 146:1-5

The presidential campaign goes on forever. Are you glad that Election Day is 49 days away? Do you wish it were over now? Voters get excited about candidates that we do not think should be senior class president, much less the leader of the free world.

Every four years, we have naïve hopes about what the next leader of our country can do. We hope this one will care for the poor, work for justice, and bring healing to our nation’s divisions. Our leaders will never completely live up to our dreams.

The writer of Psalm 146 must have been let down before writing, “Don’t trust leaders.” But rather than remain disappointed, the Psalmist sees a better way, “The person whose hope rests on the Lord their God is truly happy.”

For Christians, to rest our hope in the Lord means to find our happiness in Jesus. Christ comes before our country, school, friends, family, and desires. To say “Christ is our Leader” is to make Jesus’ hopes our hopes.

Brett Younger

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