Voting is not just casting a ballot for a preferred candidate. We also vote by the purchases we make, how we raise our families, and how we treat our fellow human beings. Life is a constant stream of the votes we cast.

Thirty years ago, I was trained as an appraiser of potential pastoral candidates. I went through three days of training to become certified. The training centered around a single premise; past performance is the best predictor of future behavior. 

When we look at who will gain our vote in the upcoming election, we have a choice to make – a vote to cast. Based on past performance, our candidate will have a track record to examine. That track record released either evidence of social order or disorder into the sphere of their elected capacity. 

Before you vote, trace the evidence of a candidate’s time in office in various elected capacities they held and the social climate they created by their leadership. We need to ask ourselves some important questions.

What does the city or state look like after their term in office? Are the streets safer? Do we have to step over human waste to walk through a city or navigate through streets lined with unfortunate souls trapped in mental illness or those who use the situation to further their criminality? What is the direction these elected officials are leading us? Has our candidate allowed social programming to take place in our schools at the expense of education?  

The choice we make is simple. It must be based on the past performance of a candidate. Our vote will determine what happens to our nation and our personal liberties. Depending on how we vote, the result of our vote will create two very different options. It will help our nation devolve into deeper levels of depravity or rise to something higher.

We are not electing a pastor. We are electing a leader who will right our unstable cultural ship that is beginning to sink along the reef of the current storm of cultural degradation. While God’s Kingdom is always increasing in authority, we have a say in how our nation is governed and the environment it creates.

Our vote should not be based on how someone looks or says something we consider to be brash and unpolished behavior. It must not be based on untested promises, only proven results. We can make that choice with wisdom if we follow the evidence of a candidate’s history.

“Just as you can identify a tree by its fruit, so you can identify people by their actions”(Matthew 7:20).