A Vote For Change

In my youth, when I started paying attention to elections, I noticed that the economy, as it effects an individual’s finances, was the number one issue that motivated voters. Still is. I am gratified that, in the recent midterm elections, other issues were also top concerns: corruption, the war with Iran, and the actions of ICE.

I understand how it is that personal finances that effect individuals and their families can become a top priority. My prayer, however, is that God increasingly opens our hearts and minds to what others are experiencing in our nation and world. May we feel more deeply the death of children at a school that our planes bombed. Be horrified by the genocide in Gaza and Sudan. Respond with compassion to the great suffering in our world. Acknowledge how our lack of compassionate action deepens the global distress of our times. We have ignored the plights of others.

I pray that we, as citizens of this nation, acknowledge the ways we have pushed each other aside. We have created divisions, when love calls for understanding, forgiveness, and mercy. Yes, the hard truth of our apathy and inaction in the face of evil must be spoken, but in a manner that does not disregard our humanity.

With the recent elections, there has been push-back against our government’s hardness of heart toward people who are hurting, including the sojourners in our midst. For many, the vote for change was a vote for healing. My prayer is that that desire for healing deepens, that it is deepened by a growing compassion that breaks down the walls that divide us.

Therefore, I pray that we would be on a journey toward reconciliation and unity. Rather than point the finger, we would see each others needs. We would embrace our common humanity made in the image of God. We would each acknowledge our own brokenness and forgive one another as God forgives us. We would move our focus to the needs of others.

As a follower of Jesus, I pray for myself and other followers, that we confess our sin, our divisiveness; that we turn from pointing the finger and instead point to the One from whom all mercy and healing flows, and that we learn to love our neighbor as ourselves—including the neighbor we have viewed as an enemy.

I pray that whatever compassion moved us to seek change, that it would deepen so that the change we seek is much greater than that which we had imagined for ourselves. May love take root at a deep level so that we would seek the change of our hearts and that compassion for one another would reign.