It Might Have Been

You don’t know his name, but in 1840, John Janney was the chairman of the Whig Party. Your teacher almost made you study his life. He is the man who was nearly President of the United States. Here is how it happened. The 1840 election was won by the Whigs. The new President was William Henry Harrison. His name you know. His Vice-President was John Tyler of Virginia who, of course, became President when Harrison died shortly after taking office. No one could have known, but in the election that year, the man who was Vice-President was destined to be President.

Here is the strange twist: at the nominating convention, John Tyler and John Janney were tied for votes to be the Vice-President. Only one man was left to vote and his vote would decide the nominee. That man who was still to vote was John Janney himself. John Janney did what was then considered to be the honorable thing. He voted for his opponent, John Tyler.

So you see, John Janney was the man who was nearly President of the United States. All he had to do was to vote for himself. There is a little bit of John Janney’s story in all of us. Maybe we weren’t nearly the President, but all of us can look back on our life and see something that we might have been. We might have been a business owner, a professional athlete, a teacher, a doctor, a lawyer, a nurse, or simply rich. We might have been, but we are not.

Of course, we can be happy where we are and whatever we are, but sometimes we get to thinking about what might have been. None of these “might have beens” ought to alarm us, but there is one “might have been” that I don’t want to look back on my life and regret. I do not want to come to my final day and say, “I might have been a Christian.” To live one’s life as a Christian is more important than living our life as an athlete, a teacher, or the President of the United States.

More than a century and a half later, we can look back on John Janney and realize that it does not matter today whether he served as President. Today all that matters to John Janney is whether he lived his life as a Christian.

There are many “might have been a Christian” stories out there. Millions who have been offered the chance to be Christians have delayed the call for a lifetime. A century from now, no one will remember their names or write about what they failed to become, but the story of rejecting Christ is sadder than that of nearly President, John Janney.

Lonnie Davis

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