Most likely, 48 hours from now, America will have chosen a new President, new senators, congressmen, governors and many ballot initiatives. It's been an ugly and embarrassing campaign on virtually every front. This has resulted in many conversations, tweets and posts with threads of futility and despair. And some of you are saying, "I give up. I'm staying home on election day." Before you do, let me offer a few reasons why you should rethink that.
Here are objections I'm hearing:
- "I'm so embarrassed of all the name-calling, the disrespect, and the lies that I just can't bring myself to attach my reputation to any of these candidates."
Imagine for a moment, saying that to a WW2 veteran. Can you
honestly look a WW2 veteran in the eye and say, “I know you put your life at
risk, but I’m too embarrassed by the ugliness to risk my reputation on any
candidate’s promises.” He or she was willing to not only risk their reputation but their life for their nation. Your reputation on the line with a candidate is really a small thing in comparison. Get over yourself.
- “They
are all deceitful and self-interested.”
Unless Jesus is on the ballot, you are
voting for the lesser of evils. Of course they are sinners. So are you by the
way.
- “I
can’t vote for either candidate for President.”
It’s not just about who will
become President. You are choosing governors, congressmen, and more. Local
government impacts you. It is a privilege to vote if nothing more than for
choosing the local sheriff.
- "No one represents my values."
Let the words of Jesus guide you here: "Love your neighbor as yourself." Rather than consider your own values as priority, what is the best candidate and position for your neighbors? Even beyond that, how should you vote considering your children's future and your grandchildren's future?
Join me in prayerful consideration of the candidates and the issues and vote tomorrow. Research the candidates and do your best. (You might consider vote411.org as a resource which claims to be non-partisan.)
I'm voting tomorrow. I hope you do too.
Love hurts. We wish it didn't. Love is risky. Wish it wasn't. Love will cost you. But it's worth it!
Today we watched a session from the Advance Conference for N.A. I love these guys! They have a passion for planting and strengthening churches. In one session, Pastor Donnie Griggs recounts asking Larry Osborne a question. (Larry is sort of a guru or "Yoda" for leader multiplication and church health.) The question was, "How do you build leaders who will not take what they have learned and abandon you or hurt you?" Larry then talks about the many who have hurt him, blogged about him in negative terms, become divisive and more. He then says something like, "You can count on it. People will hurt you. There are no guarantees when it comes to building leaders. So when they hurt you and they will, you get up the next morning and do it all again. Because we do it for Jesus."
So good. It reminds me of the famous quote by C.S. Lewis that begins with, "To love at all is to be vulnerable." (I won't quote the rest of it because it's over used. But you can read it here.)
If you love enough to invest in people, you will reap some wonderful benefits. You'll also reap some prickly thorns and thistles that will stick you and make you want to never try again:
- You invest in a worship leader for years who chooses to sleep around rather than pursue his calling
- You mentor a guy who is secretly abusing his wife. You find out too late
- You mentor a leader who takes what you've taught him and abandons you at one of the darkest times
- You counsel a lady who agrees her marriage covenant is worth keeping. Months later she's divorced and remarried and in another church saying how bad of a pastor you are.
All of these have happened to me. I've tweaked the story just a bit to protect them. But yes, love hurts. And I've had to decide whether I would get up and do it all again.
So far, God has been gracious to me and given me the courage and the compassion to love again. Mostly, because I know how fickle I can be and how God continues to never give up on me. He continues to love so how can I quit? If anyone knows how much love hurts, it's God. Yet His mercies are new every morning!
Get up and love again!
