Morning Devotional

August 26, 2003

"The Right to Vote"  

by Don Emmitte

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"So why do you call me `Lord,' when you won't obey me? I will show you what it's like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then obeys me. It is like a person who builds a house on a strong foundation laid upon the underlying rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against the house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who listens and doesn't obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will crumble into a heap of ruins." (Luke 6:46-49 NLT). 

Women who had become politically active through their work in the abolitionist and temperance movements founded America’s woman suffrage movement in the mid-19th century. In July 1848, 200 woman suffragists, organized by Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia Mott, met in Seneca Falls, New York, to discuss women's rights. After approving measures asserting the right of women to educational and employment opportunities, they passed a resolution that declared "it is the duty of the women of this country to secure to themselves their sacred right to the elective franchise." For proclaiming a women's right to vote, the Seneca Falls Convention was subjected to public ridicule, and some backers of women's rights withdrew their support. However, the resolution marked the beginning of the woman suffrage movement in America. 

In January 1918, the woman suffrage amendment passed the House of Representatives with the necessary two-thirds majority vote. In June 1919, it was approved by the Senate and sent to the states for ratification. Campaigns were waged by suffragists around the country to secure ratification, and on August 18, 1920, Tennessee became the 36th state to ratify the amendment, giving it the two-thirds majority of state ratification necessary to make it the law of the land. The package containing the certified record of the action of the Tennessee legislature was sent by train to the nation's capital, arriving in the early hours of August 26. At 8 a.m. that morning, Secretary of State Bainbridge Colby signed it without ceremony at his residence in Washington. The amendment was the culmination of more than 70 years of struggle by woman suffragists. Its two sections read simply: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex" and "Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." 

It is a right that Americans have come to cherish. We love to vote on decisions! However, there really isn’t a “right to vote” in our relationship with Christ. God allows us to choose our path, but there is only one way to righteousness. There is no room for disobedience in the life of a believer. Jesus said that it is like building your house without a foundation. It can only lead to your destruction. Our Christian walk should not be a democratic process. It ought to be theocratic. Right and wrong is not determined by the wish of the people, but by the will of God.