I am not a very "political" person but every now and again it gets to a point where I have to speak out on someone's behalf. No matter what your political affiliation is I want to talk about something that we should all have in common, and that is respect.
Not every day, but most days I can almost count on running into some kind of insult toward our President of the United States here on Facebook. Usually some witty joke to have President Obama removed from office or a prayer request (scripture included) for his days to be few, which if you go on to read the rest of that passage, we're not just talking about removing someone from office are we? It really does blow my mind how many of my Christian friends are posting negative comments about our president and I'll tell you why, and you can take it or leave it... just like you - I'm voicing my beliefs.
In God I trust... not in man. As a Christian, I know that first and foremost is my trust in God and my respect for Him. Second, is my respect for my neighbor. And third is my ability to know the difference between those two beings. I am not going to set myself up for disappointment by putting ANY president (I don't care what your name or background is) in the place of God, by expecting abilities that are only of God. I don't for one second believe that ANY individual or group of individuals have the remedy for what is ailing this world and that goes into my next paragraph.
We are living in a fallen world. Our nation is an awesome nation. Don't get me wrong, I love this country I even love most of our history (certainly not all of it, but most) and I'll wave its flag all day long in celebration of what we try to stand for. But, it is not reasonable or even possible for a person to wave a magic wand and cure this country or its people of what I'll refer to as the 5 incurables: 1. Waste, 2. Overspending, 3. Trying to fill the God-sized hole, 4. Selfishness, and lastly 5. Failure to love/respect our neighbors (all of them - not just who we like)
1. Waste ~ We as a country either throw everything out or hoard it and turn our homes into dumps. Some of us recycle, that's awesome, but most of us don't make wise choices when we make purchases. We buy something and then we let it sit in our house or our garage... or regift it and let's be honest... it ends up in the trash anyway. We as a nation are even hoarding food. We have the largest portion sizes this side of the universe... not to exaggerate to the extreme but imagine cutting your portions in half and putting them aside for a care package to a third world country. A whole family living in a third world country would consider half of what each of us eats in a week "a feast". Maybe we don't need to send a child 70 cents a day, let's assume the child is already starving and just send the money we would have used to buy too much food for us to consume in the first place. But I guess waste and world hunger are part of the President's job to solve.
2. Overspending ~ Everywhere in the country there is at least one commercial playing for every second in the day. Be it on the radio, or television, or even YouTube (sheesh, is nothing sacred anymore LOL) and for every commercial comes the message that we "need just this ONE MORE thing" to make us happy or to make us look fly, or to help us fit in, or to be cool, or to make life easier, and so on and so forth... The only thing worse than being bombarded with all of these commercials and images of what we "need" is that the advertisements work! They can count on us being in their stores to buy these "necessary" objects to add to our mantles of pride. Doesn't matter if we had the money to buy it... we've got plastic now and PLASTIC BUYS EVERYTHING. People get mad at the President because our country is overspending... but we all overspend! (Go look in your closet and pick out that dress or that suit that you absolutely needed - notice the tag is still on and you didn't wear it yet? Or what about that fly motorcycle sitting in your garage collecting dust ever since the movie Biker Boyz came out... cough really...) The best that any president (and I don't care who you put in that position) can do is try to manage the symptoms of incurable diseases called "waste and overspending"... which as far as I'm concerned all go back to greed or pride or an attempt to fill a God-sized hole. Which is my next number.
3. Trying to fill a God-sized hole ~ The real reason for most of the incurable diseases, that we're expecting the President to fix, if you trace their origins you'd find all lead you back to some feeling that you're missing something or someone. That urge to buy a new car might not have anything to do with the car itself but the feeling of acceptance or having a bond with an inanimate object that (according to the commercial) is reliable, comfortable, and makes you look super sexy while driving it on the road. Let's be honest, we could all use a little bit of that, huh? LOL but seriously, we keep throwing our resources into a huge gaping hole that only God and God's abilities can fill. A man, paying for pornography and going into debt because he can put money toward prostitution but not toward his rent, is searching for love. Though his idea of love has become completely perverted, it all traces back to some feeling of being unloved. Well, God is love and the only one capable of unconditional love, the author and creator of love itself... We throw money at that hole because we are refusing to believe that God can fill that hole (even though the hole itself is entitled "God-sized hole" clearly labeled in red). Well, so many people are frustrated with our President because they keep looking to him to fill that hole, in some way or another, they are putting him more in a place to do what God is only capable to do.
4. Selfishness ~ Humans are pretty selfish, sometimes unintentionally, but most of the time intentionally bent on making things work for them. We can't get God to do what we want and how we want and to fix our economy and to fix our homes... like a genie in the bottle. So we put it on our spouse to fix, or our pastor, or ourselves (and then get depressed because we fail every time) or our President... because he is after all OUR President and should be similar to a puppet. Let's be honest... We all grew up and realized that Elmo doesn't work without a hand shoved up his wahoo, right? Well, the President is not like an Elmo, guys. The position of the president is filled by an actual living, breathing, human adult. Capable of failure, capable of success, but not capable of solving every problem you have or doing exactly what you want done.
5. Failure to love/respect our neighbors ~ The President of the United States of America, I don't care who is in office, you will have some kind of complaint about. Usually it will be over something that God Himself, can't get people to change in their mindsets... but all the same please, if you are a Christian man or woman... you should be the first to show GRACE and the first to show some RESPECT. Because if you were in office right now. Blink for a second and when you open your eyes, picture yourself the President of the "free world"... Now, how do you convince people that they are not "free" to spend foolishly, buy more than they use, save their money, etc. How do you do what is best for a people that think they know best?? You can't! All you can do is manage the symptoms of these incurable diseases.
And I will conclude with this. If you are a human being, let alone a Christian, and you understand what any president would be up against, show some respect for the role that the man / woman is in and make the differences in your life that you need to make - for yourself. No person is responsible for helping you out but Y.O.U. Lastly, if you are a Christian... make sure you are not encouraging others to show a lack of respect for people in positions that command respect. Because God is in the highest position to command respect and the way you show respect to the people He allows in positions of authority is a reflection to others of the respect that you show God. We are commanded in the Bible to love God and to love others as ourselves... and I don't think God cares very much or believes that His words are dependent upon your political affiliations.
Have a blessed day!
Stephanie Josiah
