Thoughts

November is here and that means I can celebrate fall. I am so excited!!! Halloween is over and Thanksgiving has a full three weeks to be prepared for. I love fall. The colors are incredible, the weather is beautiful and the sense of warmth seems to be so much easier to find. I am extra thrilled that elections season is over, and that means I can enjoy my fall month with no interruptions. With all the TV time and obnoxious campaign phone calls I was finding myself counting the days until it was all over. Now it is and I so happy. I can't say that the results thrill me, but they were not unexpected. There are some very serious things happening in our country right now and this was reflected in this election cycle. There were certainly some concerning things accomplished last night; but there were some good things as well. When all is said and done you still have to wake up the next morning and get out of bed and find the best way to live your life, whether that be as a responsible citizen of this country or of some other country. Who the president is and who the Congress members are should not affect how you live your life. I know they won't affect mine. Besides, for all the Christians running around declaring doom and gloom on this country, I wonder how many of them are spending time on their knees asking God to bless and direct this country. I can say with absolute certainty that the majority of the problems in this country are a direct result of the inadequacy and inactivity of the Church and Christians in general. We have fallen down in so many ways. How can we expect those who do not know the Lord to live honest decent lives when so many of us do no better? How can we expect the poor and needy to look to us for help when we push them away or ignore them completely? How can we suppose that we are impacting our culture when many of us remove ourselves completely. The Bible says to be in but not of the world. It never tells us to remove ourselves from it. We cannot work effectively in this world if we are not immersed in it. How can someone see our light shining if we have removed it from their sight? If Christians were more of an example of the love of God and the light of Christ shining in and through us perhaps the world would have seen our good works and glorified our Father Who is in Heaven. I know that I have complaints about leaders and government, but I have always assumed that the large responsibility of bringing about change rested on my shoulders and it could not be transfered to another's without over burdening them. How can we preach to the world about Jesus when so many times we live and act as though the very real Divine Spirit living in us is simply not there? These are questions that fill my mind and challenge me to keep growing, to keep pressing on in my walk with the Lord, always pressing on towards goal for the prize of the upward calling of God in Christ Jesus.