There is no fear in love, but perfect love drives out fear. — 1 John 4:18
While half the country rejoiced when Donald Trump was reelected, the other half felt the opposite. I was in the latter group, and the predominant emotion for me was fear. Based on what I heard our president-elect say on the campaign trail, questions easily kept popcorning. What’s going to happen now? What path will our country be led down? How will the rights of the modern day “widow, orphan, and immigrant” (Deuteronomy 17:19) be protected? What lies ahead for the future of our children?
In the days since, the above verse from 1 John came to mind. The antidote to sitting and wringing hands is getting up and witnessing to the unique Christian message that has endured and changed people and nations for millennia. The words of the Reverend Michael Curry, in a recent devotion, expressed the mandates of it: “Where selfishness excludes, love makes room and includes. Where selfishness puts down, love lifts up. Where selfishness hurts and harms, love helps and heals. Where selfishness enslaves, love sets free and liberates.”
No doubt the years ahead will bring opportunities for creative and courageous acts of countercultural love. Such a witness is important now more than ever.
The words of Abraham Lincoln in his first inaugural speech, when the nation was on the verge of the civil war, are timely: “We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.”
Our calling is to show what the “better angels of our nature” look like.