It's Up to Me

I sincerely hope that I never go through another election as awful as the one that just ended. The ugliness that it unveiled in our country, and as I have said many times the past few days, in our church, shames me.

Two things remain true however:

1) God is still God. That is never going to change. And he is asking us to pray for our leaders and to merciful to them. I can trust Him to sort through the mess that we are in as a nation and help us to find answers.

2) When it comes to the day to day lives of the people around us, we have more power than the President of the United States. I am not negating that presidents have power to make decisions that effect us, but they aren't the ones who care for the people right next to us on a personal level.

There are very few people who can say that they were personally touched by the president. Think back on your life. Who are those who mean most to you? Who have had the most profound effect on you? Who was there to hold your hand when you cried, or wait with you when a family member was sick? Who helped you out when you were broke and needed a loan until the next paycheck? Who gives you advice, a ride, a meal, a hug, a smile, a kind word, a genuine laugh?

Those things come from the members of our family, our friends, our neighbors. Sometimes they come from our coworkers and even from the people we serve in our jobs. Those are the people we point to as our mentors and heroes.

There are very few sentences in the world that are made up of only two letter words. This is my favorite:

If it is to be, it is up to me.

It is up to me, or someone like me, who offers a ride home to the mentally ill woman in Danville who waits outside the church door on Sundays because she knows that someone will give her a ride or some money for lunch.

It is up to me to who provides a listening ear to someone who is in crisis and helps them sort through their feelings.

It is up to be me who does all the things I listed above.... to hold hands, to wait with people in hospital waiting rooms, to loan or give money to people who need it, to give advice, a ride, a meal, a smile, a kind word, a genuine laugh.

I can't expect the government to do those things for people. It is the church, and more significantly, it is me who needs to do these things.

If there was ever a time that our country needed help, then it is now. It's time to start being the church that God intended for us to be and, even more importantly, the people he called us to be.

Let's go through today reminding ourselves that any change that we want to see is our responsibility.

Repeat after me: If it is to be, it is up to me.