Tomorrow, we may not know who the winner of the presidency is.
But somewhere in your local community, there’ll be a homeless person who needs help. Somewhere, right now, a husband is hitting his wife and she’s about to pack up their children and escape to a battered women’s shelter. A family, tonight, is going to lose their home in a fire and have nowhere to turn. A family whose jobs disappeared with the virus will need a meal from the local food bank. A child will slip further behind in literacy at a local school. An elderly couple will go another day without face to face contact with another person.
Whoever becomes President and whichever party controls the Senate or your state legislature will be unable to fix those things. They will have zero impact in any meaningful way on the lives of those people.
But you can.
We have all obsessed with this election. We are all fretful. We all have an interest in it. But the homeless, the battered wife, the child, the hungry, and the isolated do not need a president, a senator, or a congressman. They all need your commitment to your local community. They need a neighbor’s love.
If they cannot have you directly, some non-profit in the locale where you are reading this right now will gladly take your money to help those in need. If you can give your time, give your time. If you can’t, consider giving money or prayer. I assure you the local homeless shelter, food bank, and battered women’s shelter will not harass you and text you like the political campaigns are doing.
Scripture says to seek the welfare of the city in which you live. You can certainly do that with a vote, but a vote comes on one day every other year. On that day and every other day of the year, someone in your community is in need. You are better able to serve that person than anyone in Washington.
While you focus, fret, pray, and worry about what happens today at the ballot box, please remember that politics should not be all-encompassing in your life. Please remember that politics has a role in our lives, but it should not be the predominant one.
Both sides are convinced that if their guy loses, the country is going to hell in a handbasket. I assure you, despite the hysteria, that is not really the case. But it is the case that someone in your community is falling through the cracks and you can help.
Seek the welfare of your community and please go love your neighbor today, tomorrow, and the day after that.
Erick, this is perhaps the most compassionate and focused piece I have ever read from someone in your position. I realize you are not a pastor, a shepherd, in a church. Yet this is the type of advice we (as pastors) are called on to give to hurting, confused people who have lost their focus and where they are going. Thank you again for this. Prayers.
I’m grateful to be a psychiatric nurse practitioner. I get paid to serve my fellow man. I’ve been so busy this election cycle with mental distress in my patients. I’m here for everyone who hurts and needs a helping hand. I have bought plane tickets, food, hotel rooms for my patients to sleep warm and get a hot shower. I’m honored and humbled. I’ll never stop. I don’t care who wins, we are still Americans. This world is not my home. I am longing for sweet Beulah land. May I always bring heaven a little closer to earth.