If there is any word that best describes my feeling in this election year it’s this:

Exhaustion

We haven’t shaken the combative, vengeful, hate-filled poison of the last 8-10 years and it is incredibly difficult not to fall into that same style and attitude all over again. My hope in Christ is what moves me forward.

I want to be anchored to Christ while avoiding the muck and mire of hating a candidate because they’re “in the wrong party” or don’t hold my exact ideology. I want to be anchored to Christ because there are situations all around me where I can have an impact. Places where the Spirit can use me. It is not to ignore the hard issues. It is to focus and dive deep with hope.

We need hope in a culture that bent on anger and division.

The vision of the Kingdom of God is too great to ignore or to allow the garbage heap of our political ideologies to take away my focus on the beauty and hope of this world. The vision of “your kingdom come, your will be done” is grand. It’s a short line in a short prayer that can be our constant theme and over time change our world.

The corruption, the violence, the harm done to the poor, still needs to be called out. Yet, in that, we don’t just call out the problem. We walk with hope and always keep our eyes where Jesus would be: the marginalized. We can’t just call out the wrong. We live out that phrase, “your Kingdom come, your will be done…”

Live with hope.