My civic duty

I voted today. I did my civic duty. My voice was heard…and I have the sticker to prove it! J As I stood in line I began thinking about the two presidential candidates. I thought about their faults, their shortcomings and their promises. And I made a decision. I made a decision right there to where my vote was going. 

So, I am happy to say that today I voted for grace AND I voted for love. 

Whether we like it or not, tomorrow morning we will have a new President-elect--one that will probably need lots of prayer. Some of us will celebrate that “our” candidate won and some of us will feel as though our country is lost. But above both sides, both political parties, we know what God wants for us. He tells us in Colossians 3:12 that since we are God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe ourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Verse 13 then goes on to say bear with each other and forgive as the Lord forgave you. 

These verses remind me that above all else we need to give grace and extend love. We need to give grace and extend love to the two presidential candidates and to the neighbors around us who we may disagree with. I want to live a life that is full of grace and love. Don’t you think if we could reach for love first, with grace right behind, then the rest would take care of itself? I know both sides have their ideas of what is best for our country, but I think what’s best for our country was written down a long time ago. In 1 Peter 4:8 it says, above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Well, I’m not sure about you but I think this should be the campaign slogan for this entire presidential race! 

Each of the candidates has sins. Each of us has sins, that’s a fact. But love covers all of that. If we choose to love each other DEEPLY and let God sort out the rest, then in my book we have won. We won the real battle. The one we struggle with every year…election or no election. The battle that love should be what drives us. Love helps us reach a hand out over a great divide and grace allows us to forget why the divide was there to begin with. Because above all else, we are all children of God. We are all created in His image. We are so much more than a donkey or an elephant. We are devoted followers of Jesus that know to give grace, to love deeply and to put our trust in the lamb.