President Elect

This is my thought. Regardless of who you voted for, we have a new President Elect, poised and seemingly ready to take office in a few weeks, the highest office in the land. And this office and the person occupying it ought to have our unwavering respect. If the leader of our nation fails us with scandal or betrayal or incompetence, he or she has perhaps forfeit much of our respect, but there is a level of common decency that should never wane -- a human level if nothing else.

Regardless of who you voted for, January 20, 2009 is going to be a fine day. I'm amazed that anyone is able to deny the positives. I suppose it's less a matter of denial and more an issue weight. I suppose many of my readers believe President Elect Obama's liabilities outweigh his potential contributions. Well, either way, I believe it is crucial to our humanity, and thereby crucial to our Christianity to take moral high ground, to affirm the good, more than that, to look for it. Jesus said, "Seek and you shall find." And it is true. Seek the negative in a person or a situation and you will find it.

A challenge: Let's avoid the temptation to jump quickly upon each and every small opportunity to boast, "I told you so!" Let us not be people who delight only in pouncing upon the shortcomings of another so that we can proudly declare our right-ness, wearing our superiority like a badge of consolation. How petty. Let us rather be first to seek out the good and acclaim it, not to disregard or ignore negatives and shortcomings and wrongs and mistakes, but to keep balanced perspective.