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For those of you thinking that this will be all about a political post of sorts guess again…kinda! I do have to start with a few quick thoughts though. I honestly would like you to read through the whole thing though because the first two-thirds will set up some good stuff at the end…
 
This is the second election I have been around in 2 year now. When I was in Dakar, Senegal, there was a presidential election which was somewhat crazy if you think about it. Senegal has had a lot of history and I could speak at length about what they have come through, but suffice it to say that the guy in office promised that he would only be in office for two terms when he was first elected. After being re-elected the second time, he decided to change the presidential term length to 7 years instead of the 5 or 4 before. Now that seventh year was up and it was time for another election, but this guy decided that he kind of liked being president and so he was going to run again.
 
Needless to say, the Senegalese people tried to back a number of people to get him out of office. The president wasn’t particularly liked…but wasn’t particularly hated either. What it boils down to was that he tended to side more on the benevolent dictator side of things than anything. As the election drew near, I would chat with the locals about their thoughts on it all. I was shocked at their response! I don’t remember talking to one person who believed that this was going to be a fair election. Not One!! The general consensus was that he would let anyone run against him, but he was going to put the people he wanted in position to be the counters…thus ensuring that whatever the actual vote was, he would have enough of a majority to not redo it and yet keep it close enough that people would remain somewhat happy about it…
 
Can you imagine believing that the whole thing is rigged and knowing how he was going to do it…and then in the end being adequately alright with what was going on?? This thought seemed to be so ridiculously foreign to me…partially because it was! The Senegalese people understood some things that I hadn’t quite grasped. First of all, tourism is a big part of their economy and they understand that if they are in a political mess or coup, who’s going to want to come and spend money there? Second of all, they understand what is like to be treated worse and they’d rather live through another 7 years of a selfish but benevolent man, than the possibility of becoming war torn, instable and in the end have a president or ruler that isn’t content with just satisfying his own desires…what if they truly got a tyrant for all of their squabbling?
 
 
This is Wade, the president of Senegal…Regardless, I could talk a lot about that election as well as the election we were all just a part of for a very long time…I’m not particularly fond of politics though and I feel as though part of me is growing even further away from the whole ordeal in general. The United States has been abundantly blessed in every sense of the word and we haven’t been the best stewards of it all. In fact, we don’t even really realize what we have. There is a saying that is “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone”….I am slightly hopeful that our country will wake up and realize it before it gets to that point. Some of the things that are ingrained in us from birth is our inalienable rights, freedoms, entitlements and expectations…Let me break these down a bit for you 🙂
 
 

First of all…our freedoms are misguided often…We are free to do just about anything as long as it doesn’t directly involve others TOO much in a negative way (or at least that’s the way we look at it.) But in reality, it seems to me that our freedoms lead to more slavery than almost anything else we have. How so? Well, we have something here called “The American Dream” which allows anybody to overcome anything to become a “somebody.” In the process, they go through school, often head through some college or university and make their way up the ladder of a job after struggling to find their identity and if all goes well they will end up with a nice house, gorgeous wife/hunk-of-a-husband, good job, tons of money, vacation time in the Caribbean, and plenty of toys…Comfortability to the max is the goal along with the status symbol that you know you’ve “made it” and everyone else knows it too…(those of you who have this life, I beg you to keep reading, but I have some side notes coming)
 
This lifestyle does not come easy at all and anyone who has tried will be able to tell you that whether they’ve achieved it or not… The problem, the hitch, the stumbling block is that what you own often owns you.…at least that’s how my dad says it! If you have an animal, you now have to find someone to watch it when you’re gone…if you have a huge house, now you have to heat it, pay taxes on it, clean it or get a maid you can trust to do it, and install good security in case someone tries to break in and oh, don’t forget to have insurance just in case…if you have two houses read through the last lines…if you have a name, you’ll be expected to save face for people who care more about saving face than being your friend…if you have toys you have to keep up with them and take care of them…if you are high up in the company, you’re the one that has to stay close…just in case…if you have money- you know that just everybody wants it in some form or fashion regardless of how they appear to you…
 
I wonder how many of you have sought the American dream to find that it’s not fulfilling in itself. I wonder how many of you live at surface level because you can’t quite fully trust the intentions of anyone anymore…I wonder if some of you realize that you are slave to the nightmare you once thought was a dream…but you are so sucked in, you don’t know how else to live so it because a false comfort for you…
 
However, there is hope…I’ve been blessed in my life to have some friends who have come from families that were plenty well off…AND they have been a blessing to so many people without them even knowing it…The difference is they have been blessed with an abundance but they stand there with their hearts and hands open…not clinched! They aren’t just looking to throw it away, but when they see something they believe in, they are generous and God is glorified mightily through it. The unfortunate side to this is that these people seem to be more in the minority of those who are blessed with abundance.


 There are so many freedoms in this country that we expect but because we haven’t been responsible or faithful (as a nation) with what we’ve been given, it has started to eat us up. One quick example would be the bailout recently. I was hoping a politician would have had the guts to call out the American public and say “listen, you’ve been living above your means for a long time now and you banks have been letting them do it…it’s time to be accountable as a nation, and if this is going to change, YOU need to step up and start being responsible…I will in turn be your advocate in government and will do everything I can to empower you to help me fix this problem…” Instead, we waited like sheep for words like honey to come out of their mouths of how THEY were going to fix OUR problem for us…and we ate it up when they did…
 
Freedom in itself is good…OH SO GOOD!!! but it is easily twisted and so easily entangles the most casual of observer. Our freedom leads to both a set of rights and the expectation that those rights will always be honored. We expect that we have the right to do what we want, go where we want, say what we want and not care what others think about it. We expect to have the right not to be offended, not to be judged, not to be discriminated against, not to be singled out, not to get the short end of the stick and not to have to do much if anything. In the meantime we have professed that “tolerance” is the highest of virtues…and then we twist it!  Toleration seemingly becomes the avoidances and acceptance at face value of someone who is different than you instead of the embracing of people despite differences of background, beliefs or education. Anyone who then stands for an absolute of any kind is then deemed “intolerable” which is particularly heinous…or I wonder at least if it soon will be? Either way, I’m on a bit of a tangent and need to wrap it up
 
People who love God will learn to love others fully even as they are fully loved! That goes beyond any toleration precedent the world can set for such a person. First of all Christians need to wake up. Second of all, they need to realize that when they gave it to God, they gave it all to Him…anyone who wants to follow after Christ needs to lay everything down, pick up his/her cross and follow Him…does that mean that you have to literally sell everything right now? Well, for some of you maybe…most of you probably not. He wants you to make Him Lord of it all in your heart…when that happens, it changes from being yours to being His and He’s just entrusting you to take care of what is His. Ironically, people think that the financial/materialistic side of this whole equation is the hardest part…it isn’t!!! That also means that you as a Christian (even if you are an American) need to lay down your rights and expectations…
 
This means that your right to take things personally…is gone! You are now an ambassador on behalf of someone else…they’re insulting Him, not you so get over yourself! This means that you don’t have the right to be offended with how He wants to use you…did David sign up for shepherding/war/being chased forever…did Joseph sign up for shepherding/being sold into slavery by his brothers/becoming a servant/ getting thrown into jail…Did Moses sign up for being given away at birth/killing men than running/shepherding/ coming back when 80 to lead a people who didn’t want to go into a desert and wilderness for 40 more years??? Do you think Noah caught some flak for building an ark and trying to gather animals when no one had ever seen rain before and He was the only person on the entire planet who God saw and said “He is righteous in my eyes…”….I think you’re starting to get the point! I know it takes me a long time to really let it settle in my thick skin, but seriously what right do we have to have rights???
 

We assume it, but God doesn’t promise us that…He doesn’t promise we won’t be beaten, stoned, cursed, hung, misunderstood, outcasts, spectacles, forsaken or any of that…In fact, if anything He promises that those are the things we will be blessed with if we choose to follow Him…and yet we are offended when they come (if any of us have actually been alive enough to face such things…) But this much I know. He will never leave us nor forsake us, He will guide us with His still small voice telling us which way to go, He will be faithful regardless of our infidelity, He will love us and do good to us even through the roughest of times, He is close to the broken hearted, He is rest for the weary, He is strength for the weak, He defends the widow and orphaned and He is our refuge against the storm. He is our strong tower, Almighty deliverer who is mighty to save. He is full of compassion and grace and mercy and hope and light and peace and love and He pursues us with an undivided non-relenting heart of an intimate lover and whether we have the eyes to see and perceive or not, there is an echoing in your heart with everything inside of you that fights to believe that this is what it is : TRUTH



 
He is why we are drawn to let it go. He is why we are drawn to surrender. He is why we are drawn to a fire that will purify us. He is why we are drawn to a light that will reveal our blemishes. He is why we’re loved. He is why we will become love.

 
 
 
 
 
 
You want to know why so many starving children all over the world can live with a joy in their hearts? You want to know why Jesus went out of His way to say that THEY were the ones who were blessed?
 
I think it has a lot to do with the fact that the less you have, the less you have to sacrifice to really be free…Those who have much often have a hard time opening their hands and letting it go. Those who don’t have the simplest of rights learn to depend on something greater. Their lives are raw and because of it they may address their heart much quicker than those of us who have enough “stuff’ to concentrate on instead. In fact, even when we aren’t focusing on “stuff” we are often either dwelling mentally in the past with all our failures, frustrations, discouragements, conquests and victories or we strive to look ahead to our dreams, greed, fears and doubts. We neglect ourselves of doing the one thing that someone with nothing does naturally…LIVE TODAY, moment by precious moment…