Eight years ago, after voting, I made a Facebook post saying I couldn’t believe I’d voted for the person I just voted for. My feelings haven’t changed. Tongue in cheek, I giggled to myself while posting this meme.

But, like many Christians, I felt a sense of relief when the results of the election were announced. Not because I was thrilled with the person, but because I felt that person was less of a threat to my desire to lead a godly life. Less of a threat to the sanctity of ALL life. Less of a threat to me. That’s when I realized there was a whole half of our country that was feeling the opposite. The fear and subsequent anger is, for them, a very real feeling. They’re feeling a threat to the way they want to live their lives. And that’s a feeling, I’m certain, we should have compassion on as we increasingly feel it ourselves.

What if that fear gives us an opportunity to love them as ourselves? What if, the great, undeserved, mercy we received in this election comes with great responsibility?

I’m just old enough to remember a time when the church had not yet been replaced by government programs and giant corporations. Programs that our fellow Americans now rely heavily on. I can remember when the nuns ran the hospitals, nursed the sick, and put people over profits. I can remember when church doors were open 24/7 and people knew they’d receive a hot meal and clean clothes, a listening ear and prayer. I can remember when neighbors anonymously dropped boxes of food, diapers or winter clothes to families they knew needed it and freely gave of their time and talents to help them with things they couldn’t afford a professional for. I remember when families cared for their children and elderly sacrificially. I remember, when the church had the opportunity to function as the church was intended to function.

Within approximately ten minutes of the “good news for me” of the election results, I’d been convicted. What was I going to DO with this great mercy?

What was I going to do with my freedom to worship, follow and serve my Lord? Would my service extend beyond Sundays? Would it extend to my fearful and angry neighbors? Would it extend to embracing, not their sin, but them?

What was I going to do with that anticipated “extra” after putting gas in my tank and groceries in my cart? Would it go into my vacation fund, those new brand name shoes, or the bigger house? Would my extended budget, extend to my neighbors that will likely have less in their budget?

What was I going to do with the undeserved mercy my Lord had just given me? Would I accept it as a gift and hoard it to myself, or would I extend that gift to my neighbors and show them the abundant love and provision of the Lord I claim to follow?

Then, I got a little excited. What if…..

The Lord hadn’t just given me the freedom to freely seek after and follow Him, but the freedom to show my neighbors the God I’m fighting to follow?

2 Corinthians 1:4

who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God.

What if…

We get to be a part of showing our neighbors what we ourselves have found to be true? That our God provides? Remembering… that they have been deceived into thinking the government is their savior.

Our generation has been successfully indoctrinated to believe that our help comes, not from the Lord, but from the many programs that provide for them.

And those programs have not worked for their good. They have placed their feelings above truth. They have encouraged and replicated the sin that keeps them in their suffering. They have taught them that there is no single source of truth and left them to anxiously and despairingly define their own. In their misguided attempt to care for and love our neighbors by placating and affirming them, they’ve done them incredible harm. After all, how could a program love them well when it’s separated from the source of all Love?

By the grace and mercy of God, we are not separated. As I enjoy the freedom to openly abide in the source of all love and comfort, I’m praying for the opportunities that will hopefully come to love the lost, the fatherless, the widows, the orphans, and the afflicted. And show them what the church was meant to do, share Truth and reflect Christ.

Matthew 22:36-39
36 “Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” 37 And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

John 13:35
35 By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.”