just my thoughts

i find it funny that many people that supported obama during the election is hating on all the mccain supporters for being sad, upset, depressed, angry, thinking-America-is-about-to-end, and that they should all suck it up and start working to support the new president, as both mccain and obama asked everyone to do. it's true, everyone must get behind the new president and not continue to be divided.

but i find it funny because it's like people can't remember back 4 years, when many kerry supporters thought bush's re-election meant that the united states would fail, were sad, upset, depressed, angry...all the same - and were also told to suck it up i'm sure. now i don't have sources, but i'm sure it's true. as they say, when you point your finger at someone, 3 fingers are pointing straight back at you.

i find it funny how we all have such short-term memories. that we (myself included, i'm sure) can't extend a hand of grace to the loser in whatever we do. that we don't have the humility to see or admit that our own faults are just as great as others.

"Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye?" -Matthew 7:4

for the record, i was torn between mccain and obama, and i ended up voting for neither. but my faith is not that one man or the other is going to be the "change we need" or maybe the "change we want." it's a God-given gift that we have the right and freedom to vote, to exchange power peacefully, but i find it silly that we get so caught up in who is going to be president, how one candidate means greener days ahead (metaphorically and metaphorically) while the other means gloom and doom - and which one is which depends on whom you vote for. maybe this is my youthful, haven't-paid-a-dime-of-tax (actually, i think i paid $40 freshman year from work-study), ignorance, is not all power - good and bad - given by God, and are not the leaders (and all of us) accountable before God for our actions and how they affect people? i don't really get caught up in politics, just enough to try to make an informed decision. so what if life is harder or easier, if times are good or bad, if things are looking up or down. Maybe we're too comfortable with the idea of comfort, security, wealth, the American Dream, that we forget that God never promises that our life will be comfortable or wealthy, or that our job will be secure, or that we will ever fulfill the "American Dream," whatever that may be.

It's not that that comfort, security, wealth, freedom, or whatever else we associate with America is bad - again, it is a gift, a blessing, that our America stands for the ideals that it does and gives us the rights that we have that so few others in the world also have.

but the moment I forget why I live and for whom I should be living is the moment I get caught up in the things of the world and start living for myself. we get so caught up in what's best for me and you that we lose sight of the fact that all things belong to God and exist to glorify God. God's purpose in this world was never to merely make us happy but to turn all eyes to him and glorify himself. and because of that fact, i find peace in whatever happens, whoever is president, wherever the world is headed.

"...You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye." -Matthew 7:5

Maybe we should take a pause from worrying about our own futures and ponder what it means to be a Christian in a non-Christian world...

i have found that the "change i need" is to change my focus from living for myself to living for God, and the "change i can believe in" is Christ himself.