will love be bigger than politics?

So here we are again! We have already had the first series of debates. The Iowa caucus is in just five months. Ugh!! This season seems like it will last forever!

The former President leads in the polls and is facing four different indictments. The current President is older and his son is accused of lots of shady dealings. The troops rally on both sides, defending and attacking. Both sides accuse the other of lying, of politics 😊, of making up facts or cherry-picking facts that support their candidate. And no one seems sane in this whole discussion except me. Or you, if you were writing this.

So, this brings up a simple but very important question: How are you/we going to handle it this time?

Will we have a replay of last time? Will we find ourselves at odds once again with friends whom we have barely restored a relationship with to normalcy from the last go-round? Will we double down, believing that if better armed our position might carry the day? Or will we withdraw and avoid any such conversation? (By the way, I am writing this blog more to myself than to you.)

I want to try to do it differently this time, so here are four ways that I’ve committed to. Maybe you can make your own list?

1. I want to put the whole political event in its divine context. God is bigger than this. He is not out of control. He doesn’t need the “right” guy to win in order to exercise His sovereignty. He worked through Nebuchadnezzar and Hezekiah, King Herod, as well as King David. I want to trust more in Him than in politics. I want to relax a little bit. Take a chill pill.

2. I don’t want to try to rationally convince someone that I am right and they are wrong. In reading the book “How to Think” by Alan Jacobs, I was persuaded that convictions are rooted in the heart and defended in the head. So, trying to convince someone of something that I believe is a pretty futile process.

3. When the conversation does come up, I want to be more focused on being curious about their thinking than trying to share mine. I want to ask questions about their beliefs. Where do they come from? What worries them? Their convictions often will tell me about their hopes and their fears, and I can get to know them better. But I won’t hear those hopes and fears if I am not truly interested in their thinking.

4. I want to be aware of all the times I feel judgmental or arrogant or irritated and—I hope– let that awareness bring me back to my need for Jesus and His mercy. I want my call to love others to be bigger and more compelling than my limited (though that is hard to admit) political expertise. I want love—His love—to win.

So, the challenge is out there. “A new commandment I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Palmer Trice is an ordained Presbyterian minister. He is married to Lynne, has three children and has been in Charlotte since 1979. In his spare time, Palmer enjoys golf, tennis, walking and reading.