I Know, I Know.....Obama Won

Obama is about to take the stage. I'm a competitive person, so it is with frustration that I see this happen.

Let me explain. I used to be quite the Obama supporter. Back in the Spring 2007 semester that I spent in Chicago I was an ardent fan of this potential president, now turned president elect.

But then I wasn't ok with much of what Obama said and did.

Please understand that I do not come from a monetarily wealthy family. I'm working two part-time jobs, one for minimum wage. I have debt. I have health insurance that is so bad that I went to an appointment and the counselor suggested we bypass the insurance and use a sliding pay scale, which would limit the amount of visits I could have. And yet, still my insurance costs went up- even with no medical issues or hardly even using the insurance.

Oh yes, I understand the plight of those who just want health care.

I also understand the pleas of sincere, progressive Christians insisting it is our duty to take care of the poor. But for every minute you spend telling me that it is my duty to vote with the poor in mind, please spend ten times as many minutes coming to my church telling me why it is important that we make caring for the poor personal and a true job of the church. Let us not shrug off our God-given responsibility of the church onto the government. I believe the church and the government should care for the poor, but I have a problem when people seem to think marking a ballot is fulfilling their duty to care for the poor.

I can do more as a Republican dedicating my life to ministry to and with the marginalized than voting democrat and returning to my suburban middle class cul-de-sac.

Oh, I know, not everyone is like that. There are amazing ministers- lay and clergy- voting democrat who deeply care for the poor. I'm just making some comments on how we seem to look to Obama as some kind of savior.

So, I ask....how do I approach this in the right way? How do I live without annoyance, without ridicule in my mind toward those who really believe Obama can work miracles without raising taxes, and without the quiet hope that soon people will see past his smooth-talking rhetoric to a mere human like the rest of us?

There, I just showed my weakness. I ask how I can get past those things and I still try to get one last jab in.

There are a million reasons why my current financial state would lend many to think I would vote democrat, but I don't. I made my mistakes, I've sought forgiveness, I'm trying my best to trust God and work hard to get out of this mess. I wish that other people had a similar work ethic, but I can't make anyone take pride in what they do. But I guess the government can make me contribute to financially supporting them.

Ok, I know there are plenty of people who really do need help, but there are too many people manipulating the system at the expense of people paying for it for me to feel completely good about taxes in the hands of democrats.

Maybe that's a failure in my thinking, maybe I'm wrong in that. Maybe I've lost some of the compassion I had from my inner-city experiences....I don't know.

I do know that as I see Obama take the stage just now that there is something about him I don't trust.

But as I complain people see Obama as being some kind of savior, maybe I've been guilty of treating the idea of someone other than Obama in office as a kind of savior.

So, I'm going to stop treating politics like the answer to the world's problems. A man-made institution can never solve man-made problems.

It's time to more strongly live what I believe.