Mining is dangerous business. Tunneling deep into a mountainside, puts the men with pickaxes in certain peril. It’s a tough environment where timbers crack, shafts cave in, visibility is low and the air thin. In this eerie underground, the miner’s greatest concern is the ominous and invisible threat of breathing in toxic gas. Pockets of carbon monoxide and methane are often released, spelling great harm and even death to anyone who inhales. Before modern detection devices were developed, miners used to take caged canaries into the coal mine with them. Should the little birds become distressed or drop dead, they knew conditions had become unsafe and it was time to flee to daylight and fresh air.

Politics is also dangerous business. Those tunneling into the labyrinth of our government’s bureaucracy, treasury, and halls of power put their souls in sure peril. This peril is worth the risk as there are certainly treasures to be mined for all of us in the production of freedom, justice, security, opportunity, and advancement. But the governments of men have always proven to be places where pockets of toxic ideas pollute the air, where yawning chasms of corruption swallow good men and women whole, and where the fool’s gold of greed, envy, pride, and absolute power run in glittering veins all along the way. Anyone running for public office puts himself or herself in great danger. These political spelunkers need our help as Christians. This Tuesday, we whose eyes are opened and enjoy a Biblical view of mankind and the world around, should take care to only vote for individuals who fear God and revere His holy Word. I’d hate to send anyone into a coal mine without a canary and I wouldn’t want to send anyone to Concord, Augusta, City Hall, or Washington without a redeemed conscience. Let’s only send people into positions of power who know when to run to the daylight of truth and who have a supply of fresh air in the counsel of the Holy Spirit. May the Lord bless America this election!