Vote Soft but Carry a Big Prayer

So many of us freely proclaim our political beliefs and have no problems sharing over social media, the water cooler, or coffee. All the while keeping our faith in God top secret.

“I don’t want to offend”

“What if they think differently”

“it wouldn’t be politically correct”

These are the things that come into our minds over the anxiety of sharing about a selfless, loving healer that gave everything He had for you… I don’t want to offend. And it isn’t Jesus we are worried about offending… it’s the very people that need His name on their lips and in their heart that we fear upsetting with the actual medicine that they need.

But jumping into the violent, highly polarized, extremely biased political arena requires no thought at all.

I’ll talk about Covid and gun control and immigration and racism and elections and taxes and… many other things that are highly opinionated, extremely volatile, and by their very creation… divisive. I’ll buy stickers and change my online profile images and maybe even march! But on Sunday, my family will quietly slip out into the safety of the church building before I dare offer up any identity towards the eternal.

My prayer is for hard core, full scale reversal of this practice. May we slip in and out of the voter’s booth having cast our ballot based on our convictions and principles… and never utter a word of the choices we made or why. The power of your vote does not come from grandstanding or filibustering on the internet. It comes from that little check mark. Clicking that box is your duty as a citizen. Nothing else counts, matters, or will be remembered.

And when done, praise His name! Shout to the heavens. Live a life of thanksgiving. Live in humility. Share the Savior. Speak good. Do well. Have compassion. Exemplify love. Be Jesus! This doesn’t lead to a checkmark… it points towards the eternal. It’s not our temporary, it’s our foundation.

Your citizen duty is to vote. Your purpose in life is to praise. Can we shift this back to where it belongs? Can we see how a desperate enemy would use such confusion to his advantage?

Vote. Vote with all your heart. Vote in every election. But live for Jesus. Live outwardly, inwardly, and fully for Jesus. Jesus was asked a political question once and just like a common click-bait title we would see today, He made them regret having asked. He blew up their argument. He ‘destroyed’ them. 😉 They were ‘shredded’ because He didn’t fall for their trap and give them a political ground to stand against Him on.

What He basically said was to give to the government what belonged to the government and to give to Jesus what belonged to Jesus. When we give our time and energy to these ‘issues’ and fill the interwebs with our opinions… what we are doing is giving to the government… ourselves. That doesn’t belong to them. We are giving our efforts to the government and then trying to vote for Jesus quietly on a Sunday and it simply doesn’t work that way.

We are meant to quietly vote on election day and give our lives to the one who gave everything to us. With all our hearts, souls, minds, and strengths. Live like you are saved and embrace the Christian lifestyle that Jesus so openly and freely lived for our benefit.

If we should have learned one thing by now, no matter what side of the political aisle you sit on, is that everyone in that arena has an agenda. There, quite frankly, is no truth in politics. I would define politics as the desire to make something that is wrong, appear to be right.

The Christian should know… there is only one truth. It has never wavered and has never changed. God’s word has not flip-flopped, it has not excluded, and it does not obscure. It does the opposite. His truth brings light, clarity, and hope. This is what we should be sharing. Hope! Jesus is our hope. Are you bringing hope to the world? Are you bringing Jesus? Or do you feel the need to quote someone who makes a fortune and career out of making sure you stay upset?

Prayers for a permanent 180 degree turn around. Vote with your ballot and live for your Savior.

‘Civilized Dialog’ Record Broken

Guinness World Records has reported that after thousands of years, the world record for dialogue amongst humanity has been officially broken.

Friday, July 24th 2020 marks the end of the centuries old streak of being able to communicate, sometimes even oppositionally, with fellow mankind.

At precisely 6:02 p.m. a tweet was released seemingly innocent in its claims that skunks will not stink in heaven. After a few retweets and “lol‘s” a discussion began on Facebook. The core response being that God made skunks “and all of their skunkiness” and to remove the smell post-life would indicate a mistake.

This response was not received well and a flurry of escalating tweets, memes, gifs, and posts were made that clearly established a battle line over the conflicting views.

Pouring into Youtube, Parler, Instagram, and even mainstream news outlets, the protesting is believed to have begun when CNN launched a headline titled, “This Stinks!”.

Celebrities have taken sides in the debate with former voice actor of Pepe Le Pew, Eric Bauza, taking offense at the rhetoric being hurled by so many who don’t know or understand the soul’s of the potent creatures. Meanwhile animators have created newer renditions of some of the classic cartoons where he does not smell at all, claiming that they never meant to offend anyone or anything having scent glands.

Now that the lengthy record has been put in the books and all rational dialogue has come to an end, it is speculated whether anyone will have the nerve to attempt a new record at some point in the future.

An opinion piece in the Times later pondered, “We all knew it was coming, the end of civilized dialog certainly has its place in our history, but we never knew which issue would be our last. Now knowing what we know, should we have picked a different hill to die on?”

Answering an anonymous survey, below are some of the responses to the question, ‘do you think we will begin an attempt to break the newly acquired record?’:

“If there is another opinion out there, It’s wrong! So why bother?”

“Sure, I’m open to discussion… as soon as they change their views!”

“This was the final straw, if we can tell God what He can and can’t do with stinky critters, we have no hope”.

As that record fell, a new era has begun. We aren’t sure what the record is for refusal to logically debate, engage in ignorant hate, severe intolerance, and division by opinion… but we think we can beat it.

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Image by Vicki Roberts from Pixabay

Do we really have a choice?

I’m not going to mention either candidate by name or refer to them in any way.  I have no intention of swaying your vote.  I hope you have already voted.  With that out of the way, lets talk about choice.

In all honesty, I hope the image above is what the polls would reflect after all ballots are counted.  I’m not suggesting any third party candidate or write in either.  Its just that we are lead to believe that we don’t have a choice when only given two options in our election process.

All sides are fear mongering to make us believe the least of the evils are mandatory.  And what we will shortly see is that millions of people will go out and make their mark on the closest option available to them.  And they will honestly believe they had no choice.

Fear is powerful.  Lets remember where that comes from.  Fear comes from a lack of trust in our Savior.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go – Joshua 1:9

So my first suggestion is that we put our eyes on Jesus and let the fear of limited choices subside.  My second suggestion is that we narrow our choices to just 1.  Jesus.  Its amazing how our hearts and minds open up in freedom, safety, and love when we focus on the Lord.

With the election still in mind, lets take a quick look at what the enemy does.  (And I’m talking about the real enemy, not the opponent of choice 😛 )

First we ask questions as doubt sets in.  What will happen if I don’t support this?  Its not what I want, but its the best of what’s left.  Fear replaces doubt.  We believe we don’t have a choice.  Before we know it, we are choosing, not what our hearts want, but what our emotions are telling us we can’t endure.  And at best, its all the result of lies told by the enemy and calculations based on rumors and theory.

This same tactic is used outside of elections.  Today, churches are rewriting God’s word because they fear what will happen if they don’t mimic society.

People are getting married to the wrong person, or divorcing the right one because of their fears and doubts.

People are taking their own lives because they have bought the lies.  And please understand, people that commit suicide don’t feel like they have zero options, they consider suicide to be one of them.  Do I keep living a horrible life or do I end it?  Two choices.  And just like the banner above, people feel like that is all they have.  Its the ballot presented to them.  Do you take bad choice A or bad choice B?  And we can and will debate which one is worse until the cows come home.  This is division and its a fantastic side effect of the real enemies plan.

First he gets us to narrow down our belief systems to HIS perversion of the truth, and then he divides us over the horrible options. 

God wants us to start voting like my results are above.  Zero’s are what He wants to see for all of the bad options out there.  What we tend to forget, is that its the same enemy on both sides.  And that works in politics as well as throughout life.  We need to vote like Monty Brewster in Brewster’s Millions.  He voted “none of the above”.  We live in a dark time where the freedom of the cross does not have the light it deserves.  Jesus set us free.  We are free from catch 22 options.

Jesus gave us the bravery and the integrity to post up goose eggs on the devil’s scorecards.  When your choices boil down to a miserable life or suicide… choose Jesus.  Get some help.  Ask the church.  Seek counselors.  Lean on friends and family if possible.  There are other options.  Just because they aren’t on the rigged ballot doesn’t mean we can’t use them.  Pray.  Live in spite for a while if you have to, but live because you know you have the option to.  And know that life has valleys that lead to wonderful mountaintop experiences that are worth the pain.

When the choice of gossip or exclusion from the pack faces you down.  Crumple up the ballot and throw it out.  Its a sham.  You have more choices than that.

What if we stopped casting positive reinforcement for things we don’t believe in and started living life like we have been blessed with option 3?  And that option is grace, love, forgiveness, and a Savior that wants us to be with Him.  Again, this isn’t a 3rd party plug.  You should have already voted.  This is a third option in life that I’m presenting to you.  It’s option C when both A and B are coercive, heavy handed, and seek to draw you out of your Christian habitat.

But I sure do like how that banner looks.  Zero.  It’s what Jesus gave to the pharisees of His time.  They crammed limited options down the throats of often oppressed Christians.  Jesus took one look at their menu and warned everyone to order from someone else.  What they were selling was watered down, hand picked, self serving doctrine that benefited themselves.  And while they claimed you had no choice, Jesus gave them one.

Forget about the elections.  Its all done now.  What will you CHOOSE to do next?  What choice will give God glory?  What limited ballots are staring you down, causing stress, or sleepless nights?  Its time for the write in.  Its time for the eraser.  Its time you tear that ballot up and make pure choices that glorify God in your life.  No exceptions.  No shortcuts.  No least evils.