I have been sitting on this post for awhile. Because I sincerely am not out here trying to cause trouble. But I knew that i would have to respond. So two posts in one day, forgive me. I have to speak to this, because the person that said this to me is not the only one to ‘say’ it. Just maybe not in so many words.
“Please do not start a feud over something as unimportant as politics.” That was what this person said to me. And it hurt my heart, for a couple of reasons.
But I sat with that a while. Turned it over. Tried to receive it the way it was meant — with love, I know. With a desire for peace. I understand that.
But I keep coming back to something I cannot unknot.
They said that too. The Germans. The ordinary ones. The bakers and the teachers and the bank clerks. They told themselves — and each other — that politics was not worth the trouble. Not worth the discomfort. Not worth the family dinner going cold.
Martin Niemöller was a pastor. A pastor. And he said afterward, of those years when everything was shifting and the signs were everywhere: we preferred to keep quiet.
A man named Milton Mayer spent years after the war interviewing ten ordinary German citizens — not monsters, ordinary people — asking how it happened. One of them said this:
“I fooled myself. I had to. Everybody has to. If the good had been twice as good and the bad only half as bad, I still ought to have seen it… But I didn’t want to see it, because I would have then had to think about the consequences of seeing it, what followed from seeing it, what I must do to be decent.”
He didn’t want to see it.
Because seeing it cost something.
And here is what Niemöller said — the thing that is carved into stone at the Holocaust Museum:
First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a socialist.Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out — because I was not a trade unionist.Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out — because I was not a Jew.Then they came for me — and there was no one left to speak out.
He was a preacher who kept quiet to keep the peace.
I know what I am called to. I know whose I am. I am not trying to be political. I am trying to be faithful. And faithfulness — the kind that costs nothing, risks nothing, disturbs no one at the table — I’m not sure that’s faithfulness at all.
I don’t want a feud. Lord knows I don’t. I want the table. I want the people at it. I want to grow old with the people I love and argue about whose cornbread recipe is better and watch the grandchildren run.
But I also know that silence has a history. And that history is not kind to those who chose it because the alternative was uncomfortable.
Paul said he determined to know nothing among them except Christ, and Him crucified. I hold onto that. But Christ crucified is not a quiet thing. It is not a safe thing. It is not a thing that left the dinner table undisturbed.
The cross was political. Rome made sure of that.
I am not equating. I am not dramatizing. I am asking — genuinely, with love — what does faithfulness look like when the stakes are real? When the people being affected are not abstractions but neighbors? When the silence of the church is, itself, the wound?
I don’t have a clean ending for this.
I just know I cannot call it unimportant. Not because I want a fight. But because I’ve read what happens when enough people do.
“The fact is, I think, that my friends really didn’t know. They didn’t know because they didn’t want to know.” — Milton Mayer, They Thought They Were Free, 1955
In my continuing series, ‘What Have You Done For Me Lately’, I want to talk about what this administration has done about the fentanyl/drug problem here in the US.
If you remember, I started this series to look at and talk about the things that people credit Mr. Trump and his administration with that make him ‘the best president ever’. I am trying really hard to be honest and fair, primarily because so many of my friends, family members and acquaintances actually do credit him with that designation.
I have looked at the tax breaks and the border and immigration, both the good and the bad. It is important to note, and to remind both myself and you, my reader, that the entire purpose of this blog is figuring out how I should respond to these political happenings in the light of ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’ It can seem as though these posts are primarily political, with numbers, quotes, arguments, etc. Of course, we have to discuss the claim, the reality, the response, and the rubber-meets-the-road aspects of them all. While ‘tax cuts’ and ‘border control’ and even ‘fentanyl control’ are wonderful things that we should all be rooting for, if any of those things cost my neighbor too much, then they are not so wonderful.
Back to fentanyl.
First. People are dying less. That is real, and it matters.
Fentanyl is the leading cause of death for Americans between the ages of 18 and 45. Not car accidents. Not cancer. A synthetic opioid so potent that two milligrams — about ten grains of table salt — is a lethal dose. It has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans. It has emptied towns and shattered families and left children without parents, and parents without children.
Overdose deaths from fentanyl fell from roughly 75,000 in 2023 to about 48,000 in 2024. That is a 27% drop. Total overdose deaths fell from 105,000 to 79,000 in the same period. Those are not small numbers. Those are 26,000 people who did not die.
Fentanyl seizures at the southern border dropped by half in the first half of 2025 compared to recent years. Less coming in. Fewer people are dying. I am not going to minimize that.
26,000 people. Alive! Who might not have been.
That matters to me. I hope it matters to you.
White House spokesperson Anna Kelly attributed the continuing decline in overdose deaths to President Trump’s policies at the southern border, military strikes on drug boats in the Caribbean and Pacific Ocean, and Trump’s work to stop chemicals used to make fentanyl from being imported from China. dittany
In February 2025, Trump designated eight major cartels — including the Sinaloa Cartel, MS-13, and Tren de Aragua — as Foreign Terrorist Organizations. In July 2025, Trump signed the HALT Fentanyl Act into law. In December 2025, Trump signed an executive order designating illicit fentanyl as a Weapon of Mass Destruction. And he used tariffs as leverage — imposing duties on Mexico, Canada, and China partly on the grounds that they were not doing enough to stop the flow of fentanyl.
These are all great things! 26000 lives saved. Less fentanyl coming in with border seizures down by almost half in the first half of 2025! That’s huge, and I thank God for it.
Where does the rubber meet the road on this?
The decline in overdose deaths began in 2023 and 2024 — before Trump took office in January 2025. The trend was already moving in the right direction. That does not erase what his administration has done. This does not negate what this administration has done, only the claim that he is The One responsible for it.
And then there are the boats.
Beginning in September 2025, the United States military began launching airstrikes on vessels in the Caribbean Sea and Eastern Pacific Ocean. The administration called it Operation Southern Spear. They said the boats were carrying drugs. They said the people on them were narco-terrorists.
As of May 2026, Operation Southern Spear has carried out more than 50 strikes, killing at least 193 people. The operation is ongoing. The number will be higher by the time you read this. “No public evidence was produced to support the claims about the cargo or the identities of those on board.” Stripes
In a classified congressional briefing in December 2025, Secretary of State Rubio and Defense Secretary Hegseth told lawmakers the boats were believed to be carrying cocaine. Not fentanyl. The boats being bombed in the name of fentanyl were carrying cocaine.
A Colombian man named Alejandro Carranza was killed in one strike. His family and Colombia’s president said he was a fisherman with no ties to drug trafficking.
193 people killed in international waters, violating international law, primarily carrying cocaine, if anything at all. brennan
But here’s the thing, the Coast Guard — using the legal framework that has existed for decades — intercepted over 500,000 pounds of cocaine in fiscal year 2025. A record amount. With no deaths. CNN
The legal way. Record results. Nobody died. No illegal boat bombing.
“But, honestly, 110 deaths of narco-terrorists as compared to saving 26000 lives, it’s worth it, right?” Well, first of all, I would say no. Every life is valuable. But here is what the numbers tell us.
Trump said “Every boat that gets hit, we save 25,000 American lives.” (nbc)
Vanda Felbab-Brown, drug trafficking expert at the Brookings Institution, said plainly: “Killing a drug mule has minimal effect on the flow of drugs or the systems of criminal organizations.” And specifically about fentanyl: “Whatever actions are taken in the Caribbean have no effect on fentanyl.” PBS
Why? Because the Trump administration’s own State Department International Narcotics Control Strategy Report identified Mexico as the only significant source of illicit fentanyl affecting the United States. Fentanyl is primarily manufactured in foreign clandestine labs and smuggled through Mexico — not through Venezuela or the Caribbean. Fox 59
What does it mean to know nothing but Christ — and Him crucified — when I am looking at 26,000 people who did not die of overdoses last year?
It means I am grateful. Genuinely, on-my-knees grateful. Every one of those 26,000 is someone’s child. Someone’s parent. Someone God knew before they were formed. If even one policy, one order, one seizure kept one of them alive, that matters. That is worth saying out loud and meaning it.
And.
What does it mean to know nothing but Christ when I am looking at Alejandro Carranza? The fisherman. The man whose family says he had nothing to do with drugs, killed in international waters by a military strike, no trial, no warrant, no evidence produced, no arrest made — just a missile and a press release on Truth Social.
It means I cannot look away. Because He didn’t.
Jesus did not sort people into the ones worth grieving and the ones who had it coming. He wept at Lazarus’s tomb knowing full well he was about to raise him. He stopped on the road for the one bleeding in the ditch when everyone else had already done the math and kept walking. He asked, always, about the one. The one sheep. The one coin. The one son.
I keep thinking about the two men who survived the first boat strike. They were clinging to the wreckage of their vessel in the Caribbean Sea. The administration acknowledged they were there. Acknowledged there was no communication from them. And struck the boat again.
Men. Clinging to wreckage. Struck again.
Because they might have radioed someone.
What would Jesus do?
I think He would have gone into the water after them.
I don’t even know what to think, or how to react, or what to do. Except pray, and ask, how do I go into the water after them, too?
I have been looking at all of the great things that President Trump and this administration have done for this country. I hear repeatedly that he is the best president this country has ever had, and I want to see why people can say that. I do my best not to live in the ‘Echo Chamber’ that only repeats back to me what I believe, but to actually look and listen to what is going on. Because the politics of today really matter to me as a Christian, to one who has determined to ‘know only Christ and Him crucified’.
The last time I looked at the Big Beautiful Bill and the tax cuts that it brought to America.
This time I want to look at immigration.
According to historical data from Border Patrol, immigrant encounters at the border are at their lowest since 1970. That is incredible! The crossings dropped from 2.4 million in fiscal year 2023 (CBP/Pew Research) to only 237,538 in fiscal year 2025 (CBP/Pew Research). In May 2025, border patrol reported only 8725 encounters, a 93% drop from the previous May. (CBP)
On Trump’s very first day in office, in January 2025, he signed 10 executive orders related to immigration and border control. These included declaring a national emergency at the southern border, ending the ‘catch and release’ program, a ban on border asylum seeking, reinstating ‘stay in Mexico’, deeming cartels terrorists, ending sensitive locations, suspending the refugee program, and restricting birthright citizenship.
It was a lot, and it seems to have been effective. You can’t look at the data and think that fewer undocumented immigrants are coming across the border. It was a promise Mr. Trump ran on, a political idea that many people voted for, and one promise that it looks like he kept.
I’d like to say, ‘full stop’.
I’d like to, but then we do the deep dive. We look at what each of these things did and where the numbers come from. And remember, I am trying to look at all of these things as they relate to how I should respond as a Christian. How do I know nothing but Christ in light of it all?
The numbers…they are real as far as anyone can tell. Credible sources, the Border Patrol agency and Pew Research, as well as many other researchers, report that border crossings, as of May 2025, are at a 50-year low. Did Trump do that? Partially. In 2023, crossings reached an all-time high, but…
In April 2024, President Biden signed an agreement with Mexico to increase enforcement on the Mexico side of the border. Mexico deployed forces that began to detain immigrants before they ever reached our border. In June 2024, Biden restricted asylum claims. By September 2024, according to CBP releases, immigration had already fallen by 75% from the previous September.
Trump’s executive orders definitely accelerated the slow down, but he cannot take full credit.
What about the orders, specifically?
Expedited removal means no due process, a right given to all people in America, not just citizens, by the Fifth Amendment. Now, expedited removal means fast. It often means that people are deported before they have the opportunity to prove their legal standing. American citizens have been detained. Legal immigrants deported.
ICE had always acted within a sensitive location policy. That meant enforcement procedures did not take place in schools, medical facilities, churches, and the like. Trump’s executive order changed that. A Stanford University study showed a 22% decrease in school attendance after the January raids. People are afraid to go to the doctor, or even the hospital, and churches in Chicago and San Marcos have put guards outside their doors to watch for ICE, while people are worshipping!
We can talk about the constitutionality of some of the other executive orders, including birthright citizenship, and the way he used the emergency declaration to bypass them all. It should be noted that the birthright citizenship order has been blocked by the Supreme Court as unconstitutional.
However, I want to spend a moment looking at how all of these things have worked out on the ground. At your ‘neighbors’ house. Where children are being detained at bus stops so that their parents are forced to come out and join them to be deported (Ramos, NBC News, and Tippan Eccheveria, Office of Inspector General, Minneapolis). How ICE agents, and yes, often masked, are breaking into homes without the benefit of a search warrant and dragging people out to take them in, without even giving them the opportunity to find or show documentation. (Thao, Minnesota, Forumtogether and the Texas Birthday Party the Texas Tribune)
When Trump took office, there were approximately 39000 people in detention. There are now 68000, a 70% growth in around a year. Where and how are they being detained? What are these places like?
Forty-six people died in ICE custody between January 2025 and March 2026. ICE confirmed that number. It made 2025 the deadliest year for immigration detainees in over two decades. Six of those forty-six had no criminal record and no pending criminal charges. Thirty-six of them died within three months of entering detention.
A bipartisan government watchdog — the Government Accountability Office — found in May 2025 that clear performance goals and measures for detention facility oversight had not been set. ICE’s own inspectors documented violations at Florida’s Krome detention center: people sleeping on floors without bedding, staff failing to ensure people had been offered food, five specific violations in medical care.
90% of ICE detainees are currently housed in facilities operated by either CoreCivic and Geo Groups. These are for profit organizations running facilities with nearly 70000 prople in them.
In late 2025. The administration awarded a $1.3 billion contract — with a $2.7 billion ceiling — to a company called Acquisition Logistics LLC to construct and operate a massive new detention center. A company with no prior experience constructing or operating a detention facility. Their headquarters was listed as a home in central Virginia.
In September 2025, an internal ICE report found the facility had 60 violations of ICE detention standards in just 50 days. Three detainees died there. One death was ruled a homicide by a local medical examiner after guards used force trying to stop a detainee from harming himself.
Eight months after the original contract was awarded, DHS replaced Acquisition Logistics with Amentum Services, Inc., a company that has racked up 112 federal regulatory violations across its various companies, issued as a no-bid, sole-source contract. (Scripps and Public Citizen investigation)
46 people dead in custody. Children being imprisoned. Detainees saying that they are being denied basic medical care, food, or even drinkable water. Too many people in too small a space.
How do I accept this, accept the way this promise was kept, and keep silent…while walking out my faith?
This will be my first post in my study of all of the positive things that have come out of this administration. I have promised a deep dive, and this is as deep as I can go. One by one, I intend to cover the tax cuts, the border, drug deaths and imports, etc.
Today? The One Big Beautiful Bill. Signed July 4, 2025. I am going to look at all of the tax cuts for working families.
No tax on tips or overtime, the child tax credit was preserved, the standard deduction went up, a new temporary deduction on senior taxes, the SALT deduction cap went up, car loan interest is deductible, a lower top marginal tax rate, an expansion of the estate tax exemption, and business full expensing.
These are great, really and truly! I have been a server, and had many hourly positions while raising my family. When I heard about a lot of these, I was really excited. So, lets look.
No tax on tips or overtime, If you’re a server, a factory worker, a nurse pulling double shifts, anyone working per hour — you get to keep more of your money. That a big deal. Especially for those of us living pay check to pay check. Finally, a break!
Here’s where I have to stop and breathe for a minute. Because, I took a look at how all of these tax breaks work and how they are paid for, because that money has to come from somewhere, right? Taxes are basically income for the government.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office — the people whose entire job is to count without picking a side — found that our poorest neighbors, the bottom 20%, gain nothing from the tax cuts. Zero. Because they already owe no federal income tax. The standard deduction already covers them.
If the standard deduction is 16,100 dollars per year, you don’t get an extra deduction if your income is less than that.
So the “no tax on tips or overtime” provision? Its not a tax cut, it’s a deduction. A deduction doesn’t help you if you have nothing to deduct from. Remember that you have no income tax if your income is less than 16100 per year. So, no deductions.
However, the child tax credit was doubled. That is good news and would have expired last year.
Some seniors will enjoy less or no taxes on their incomes, this is targeted, and does not apply to all retirees, but will definitely benefit some. People who receive Social Security already do not pay taxes if their combined income is 25k or less for a single person and 32 for a couple filing jointly.
The SALT cap… The cap on deducting state and local taxes from your federal return was raised from $10,000 to $40,000 for 2025, rising 1% per year, before reverting to $10,000 in 2030. Higher earners see their deduction cut by 30% above $500,000 income. Upper-middle-class homeowners in high-tax states like New York, California, and New Jersey will benefit from this cap. This is a mixed provision — it helps people in those states but primarily those with significant property and income taxes to deduct.
The car loan deduction allows purchasers to deduct up to 10k in car loan interest on American built vehicles. Great, if you can afford a loan and your credit is good enough to let you get one.
The lower top marginal tax rate is lowered from about 40% to 37%.The bill permanently cut all marginal tax rates except the lowest, including reducing the top rate from 39.6% to 37%, at a cost of about $340 billion over the decade. This part of the bill primarily the highest earners. The top rate only applies to income above roughly $600,000.
The estate tax exemption went up from about 14 million to 15 million, meaning heirs don’t have to pay taxes until the estate has more value than that.
The business full expensing allows businesses to write off the full cost of investments in one year rather than depreciating over time.
So, the Big Beautiful Bill did have some tax cuts, credits, and deductions that will benefit the average person. No tax on tips or overtime, no taxes on Social Security below a certain level, the child credit, and raising the standard deduction. For the 80% of people who are middle class or lower (wage-wise), these are beneficial. The rest are really only beneficial for the 20% that live in the upper middle class and above levels of income.
How does the government fund these cuts? The bill is paid for — partially — by cutting $187 billion from SNAP. Food stamps. And cutting deeply into Medicaid. The Congressional Budget Office estimates 10.9 million Americans will lose their health insurance by 2034 because of this bill.
Our poorest neighbors lose an average of $1,600 a year in resources. So, the 10% of our neighbors who sit at the lowest end of the earning scale, lose upwards of 16000dollars a year when you add up SNAP, Medicaid, Medicare and the other government assistance programs that were cut to pay for it. (https://www.commonwealthfund.org/publications/issue-briefs/2025/jun/how-medicaid-snap-cutbacks-one-big-beautiful-bill-trigger-job-losses-states)
What about the top 1%? They gain more than $50,000 a year. The estate tax exemption was expanded — meaning the children of the very wealthy inherit even more, tax-free. The top income tax rate was cut permanently.
Nearly 60% of the total benefits of this bill go to the top 20% of earners.
It means that 80% of Americans — our working neighbors, our middle class neighbors, our struggling neighbors, our poorest neighbors — share 40% of the benefits. While bearing the cuts to the programs that keep them fed and healthy.
That’s the math. I didn’t make it up. The CBO did the math. The Joint Committee on Taxation did the math. The Penn Wharton Budget Model did the math. They all came up with versions of the same answer.
Now. Am I saying there’s nothing good here? No. I told you I was going to be honest and I meant it both ways. There are some potentially good things, tax wise in this bill.
However, I find myself looking at 10.9 million people about to lose their health insurance. I find myself looking at 4.7 million people losing food assistance. I find myself looking at the woman in the ghetto who can no longer feed her children. I find myself looking at the elderly neighbor who can’t afford her prescriptions.
And I find myself asking the same question I always end up asking. How do these changes reflect loving Christ? Of knowing only Him and Him crucified?
I don’t have an easy answer. I never do. But I’m going to keep looking. Keep counting. Keep bearing witness.
It seems that every time I come here and write, it ends up being a piece about how as a Christian I stand against the current administration. And that is not really true. I try not to stand for or against any political leaning as a whole. There are good and bad to both sides on the political spectrum. I try to come down on the side of Christ and His teachings. I think about what it means to be a Christian in these days, what does that look like when the rubber meets the road.
I decided to take a step back and look at the good things that this administration has done for our country.
If you are new to me, and what I write, I am a Christian, Grandma, and someone who can’t stop paying attention. And, if you have followed me at all on any platform, you will know that I do my best not to take something at face value. I always try to do my due diligence. I research, whether its news or Bible, because I want to, as much as possible in this world of deep fakes, AI and media spin, know the truth.
Over the next little bit, I am going to be looking at all the good things that have come out of this administration. I will be starting with the ‘headline’ and working from there to what that thing looks like in the day to day of American people. (To be honest, I will be including the people who live here who are not necessarily American, cause they are neighbors, too. I am unable to separate certain basic Christian truths from what I write and think about.)
So, lets take a look at some of the positives coming out of this administration. Tax cuts have been made permanent, drug overdose deaths are falling, border crossings are at historic lows, fentanyl seizures and enforcement are stronger, the Gaza ceasefire. Real Wages are rising and nuclear energy investment
So, these are major ‘good’ things that this administration has brokered in one way or another. I am going to be doing a series looking at each one, and how it came about, how it works, and what it looks like.
I will try to be honest. I will try to speak truth.
Because, I am determined to know nothing among you save Christ and Him crucified, and I want to live that in my every day, in my politics, and in how I bear witness.
The Pentateuch, or the first five books of the Bible, are filled with the stories of God creating a nation for Himself. From Adam and Eve through Moses, we read about His desire for fellowship with a people, His laws that enable them to enjoy that fellowship, their apparent inability to keep those laws, and His reactions and actions to bring them back.
We read about wars and slavery. Redemption…and destruction. We read about provision, disobedience, love, hatred, obedience, miracles, and a God who is very forthright in His expectations of His people.
Abraham, Isaac, Jacob…called to be a people set apart. Following the leading of God in their journeys. Imperfect people following a perfect God. A perfect God who continually speaks into their imperfection, ever drawing them onward and closer to Him.
We read about Jacob, or Israel, settling in Egypt to survive a famine and becoming slaves to the government, which feared the size of this nation living among them.
And then comes Moses, who leads this people out of Egypt, into what would become their freedom, their home, and their country.
Through their own unbelief in the ability of their God to save them and to deliver this land to them, they end up walking in the wilderness for forty years. Forty years of learning more about God. Forty years of becoming.
We read about this people that God is concerned about. That He loves. That He has called out among the nations to be His representative peoples on this earth.
Finally, it comes time for them to take the land that they had been promised. They have miraculously crossed the Jordan River on dry land and have come to Jericho. Here, the troops are deployed around the city, and they are finally ready to attack.
When Joshua sees a Man standing before him with sword drawn. Somehow, Joshua recognizes that this is not just a man, and he approaches him and asked, “Are you for us or for our enemies?” Joshua 5:13
I know what my expectation in that moment would be. Joshua standing there, anointed by God to lead this people into the promised land. Told by Moses that they would take the land and none would stand against them. On the eve of their first battle to do what God had said as a nation. I would expect this man to say, “On your side, of course…”
But that’s not what he said. His answer gives me pause today. His answer makes me step back from all of the noise in our country. From all of the fighting, and all of the political jangling, and all of the ‘Republicans are right. No Democrats are.’ From all of the ‘We are the people of God, of course God fights for us.’
The man replied, “Neither, but as commander of the army of the Lord I have now come.”
‘I haven’t come to fight for you. And I haven’t come to fight for them. I have come to fight for God.’
Even when this people, the called of God, the anointed by God, the ones who God had brought through the wilderness and called His own, even when this people went to war to take the land that He had promised them, even then, God did not take sides. He fought for His own glory. He fought for His own promise. His armies came to represent Him.
Not a faction. Not a political group. Not even a country.
‘But, He did fight for Israel,’ you might say. Yes, He did. In this instance He did. Because it served God’s purpose. There are many stories where He fought against Israel as well. Because the Lord’s armies fight for God.
When we stand up and say…no matter who we are…that God fights for us (In the larger sense), we are not backed up by Scripture.
God stands for right and holy. Not America. Not Democrats. Not Republicans. Not even Baptists, or Episcopalians, or Catholics, or Non-Denominational, or what have you.
God is not a spectator, and life is not a spectator sport. He is not cheering one side or another. God is love. His battle for His people took place on the cross, where He once and for all purchased our salvation. For the joy that was sent before Him, Christ endured the cross. (Heb 12:2) The joy of fellowship with me, with you.
When God rises up in battle now, He rises up for the individual. He prepares us for warfare (Gal 6) and tells us very plainly that we no longer fight against flesh and blood, but against spiritual strongholds.
God desires that none should perish (2 Pet 3:9) but that all should come to repentance. How does this fit into a Theology that calls on His Name to win wars, or to pass political legislation, or even to say you must think this way, walk this way, look this way to be a Chsitian? That we are America and our way is the right way, and God will give us victory no matter what we do? (Or we are Israel, for that matter?). We are the political party that God has chosen. We are the church that God has chosen. And so He will fight for us…
God wants you. “For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that WHOEVER believes in Him would not perish.” (Greek word pas, meaning each, all in the individual sense of the word. Each and every person.) You, He wants you.
I started writing this blog to talk about my struggles in this current political climate in America. How I pray, and what I do, and where I land. And it may seem sometimes that I am coming down hard on one political party’s side. That I am saying, obviously, God supports this party over that. What I am trying to say, what I am trying to do, is to discern what God’s will is through all of this. Not what party I should belong to. Or what country I should be rooting for in a war. Because if I’m ‘in the Lord’s Army…Yes, sir!’ then I need to know what to fight for.
Because when the captain of the Lord’s armies comes to fight, he doesn’t come to fight for a nation or a group. He comes to fight for God. And God wants you.
Paul, more than any other man except Jesus, defined what it means to be Christian. Through his many letters, journeys, preachings, and even prison terms, he described to us what it looks like when faith meets the road.
Romans, 1 Corinthians, 2 Corinthians, Galatians, Philippians, 1 Thessalonians, Philemon, all undisputedly written by Paul, with six more books likely written by him. He wrote the very first Christian writings we have, predating the Gospels.
He wrote about the sanctity of life, politics, marriage, the cross, loving our neighbor…religion.
And he was a disruptor.
Caesar was a god. The imperial cult was the religion of the empire, the worship of the divine Caesar. Temples to Caesar were erected in every city, including the ones Paul went to: Corinth, Ephesus, Philippi, Thessalonica.
The very words he used as he wrote, and preached, deliberately chosen to ‘provoke’ the empire.
‘Euangelion’, the Gospel. This was the word used for Imperial proclamation, the word used when a new Caesar was born or enthroned and the good news was proclaimed throughout the world.
Kyrios-The Lord. This was Caesar’s title. That Paul used for THE Lord, Christ.
Soter-Savior. Another imperial title used for the divine emperor.
Parousia- the coming of the Lord. This was the term used when the Caesar came to town and the people went out to meet him. Paul used it to describe the second coming of the Lord.
Ekklesia- this was the word used for a political assembly of citizens. Paul used it as the gathering of the believers.
Pistis- faith or faithfulness. It was used as a term for loyalty to Caesar, Paul made it loyalty to Christ alone.
And Rome noticed.
Paul was arrested multiple times for defying the law of the time. Every single arrest that I looked at was, while ostensibly for preaching the gospel, in reality a political arrest. He defied the laws of Caesar’s kingdom by primarily proclaiming another King whose laws superseded those of the Roman Empire.
He preached freedom from those laws.
He preached a higher authority.
In Philemon, we can see a gentle persuasion to set the slave free.
He preached equality, no slave or free, no male or female…
He preached love over everything else.
He stood in the face of everything that the political empire held dear and he taught Christians what it means to be ‘other than’.
He debated with civic and with religious leaders. He traveled the world teaching about Christ. He engaged politicians, Kings, governors, proconsuls, magistrates and city clerks. The Sanhedrin, chief priests, elders and synagogue leaders.
And he preached the Gospel to them. He told them that their current government was not godly. That Caesar was not God. That he was not the final authority. That there was another way, a better way. He broke the law every single time he opened his mouth or put stylus to parchment proclaiming Christ as King.
And in all of that…every single act of defiance against the state and the church at that time, he said, “I have determined to know nothing before you save Jesus Christ and Him crucified.”
Every word, every discussion, every letter, every confrontation, first passed through the lens of Who Christ is and who He was in Him.
And this is my determination, too.
WWJD…remember? What would Jesus do? Knowing Him, living in Him, hidden in Him, being His people, His representatives in this world , what should we do?
This is the question, the inner debate, the prayer that I ask every day. And in the asking I find that I must continue to bear witness, to speak for those who can’t speak for themselves, to stand for the fatherless, the poor, the weak, the disenfranchised…the muslim, the jew, the atheist, the woman considering an abortion, the LGBTQ persons, the ‘other than’. Because, Christ and Him crucified was for all of them, for all of us.
It’s the fifth day of spring, and I have already had to mow a part of the backyard. Most of the property is just starting to green up, but this little patch is thick and luscious.
Erma Bombeck wrote a book back in 95 called ‘Life is Always Greener Over the Septic Tank’. Guess what? It’s true! This patch of lush, thick, green grass is right over the septic tank’s drain field.
While I was mowing, I remembered this book and thought of the truth of it. How the grass is greener over the septic tank. The septic tank. Full of…well, you know.
And then I thought about growth.
You know, natural growth, physical growth happens with or without our help. Living things need food, water, air, and we grow. Like the grass in the backyard, which is over a spot that is always wet.
Spiritual growth, emotional growth, mental growth? They take work.
And I thought about my relationship with God, and those times that I have noticed the most growth. It seems to me that those growing times are almost always over a ‘septic tank’. Some happening in my life, or in a loved one’s life, that forces me in to God.
There are a lot of questions that I don’t have the answer to. A lot of things that I don’t understand.
A dear one dies, unexpectedly. Taken too young, too soon, in spite of faithful prayers.
A business fails, after years in prayer and careful planning. Everything done right.
Failing health, regardless of all of the careful exercise, eating and care.
Children abused, murdered, left alone.
Countries at war…none seeming to be in the right.
People I trust and admire, whose actions or words seem to me to stand in stark contradiction to the scripture they claim to follow.
“How can God…?
If God is, then….?
How do you explain this, if God is…?
That’s when we wrestle. And that’s when we grow.
Wrestling is an up close activity. You can’t wrestle from a distance, you have to be in close. You grab ahold of the person that you are wrestling with and you hold on.
Remember Jacob wrestling with the angel of God? He was in a very difficult time. He was returning home after years away with all of his family and all that he had earned while he was gone. But, he was returning home to a brother that he had betrayed over and over again. He didn’t know what his reception would be, or if he would even survive.
During the night, an angel appeared, and wrestled with him til daylight. All night, they wrestled, hand to hand, up close and personal. Jacob was wounded in the wrestling and when the angel told Jacob to let him go, Jacob refused. ‘Not until you have blessed me’, he said.
And the angel changed his name. Jacob became Israel, because he had wrestled with God and with man and had overcome.
Jacob was changed in the wrestling. He grew, and became one known for struggling with God and for struggling with man, and overcoming in the struggle.
I know that wrestling. I live in it.
I struggle a lot. With God and with people. About my faith and what it means to be Christian in this society. With God, because there is a lot I don’t understand. I don’t know how to be, or how to do. I only know that He is…and that He is a rewarder of those that diligently seek Him.
And I wrestle with man. My fellow Christians who often condemn me for my actions and attitudes. And others who, because I am a Christian, accuse and condemn me for others’ actions, or even my inaction.
It’s a septic tank!
But, the grass is greener. And growth comes.
Am I trying to say that I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that the way I think about all of this is absolutely, 100% correct, and if you don’t line up with it, you are wrong?
No, what I am trying to say is that struggle is okay. That it can even be good. It is honest.
And you might have your name changed in the process.
I haven’t posted in a while because I have been praying. I don’t like to speak without having a resolution, a clear path. And I just don’t have one now. But, I started this to share my journey here, to talk about my thoughts and prayers, so here it is.
Abortion is wrong. I can’t find a way to call it anything but, especially Scripturally. Even a cursory read of the Bible, which doesn’t mention the word abortion specifically, shows that children are precious, made in the image of God, and alive…named, called…before birth.
Even science shows that this is a human life from conception. It can never be anything other than human. Vulnerable, unable to live without the support of its mother for months, but human.
And ‘thou shalt not murder”. Intentional, premeditated, without legal or moral justification, motivated by hatred, malice or selfishness, or the taking of an innocent life. In many cases it seems that abortion fits all of these definitions of murder. (Not in all, by any means and trust me, I get it…this is me speaking as a pro-life Christian with all of the arguments as to why I am against abortion)
Not to mention my call as a Christian to protect the innocent, the poor, the marginalized, the fatherless, etc.
Then how do I reconcile my political activism, and supporting people or parties that are pro abortion with my faith?
I haven’t. I struggle every day.
Because we are talking about the sanctity of human life. All of it. The unborn and the born. The fetus and its Mom. The poor. Immigrants. Women, men, children. Friends and enemies. All of it.
So, when we are talking politically and aligning with a group in our current society, we are talking about aligning with a group that is ‘pro-life’, and cuts funding to families, medical care, financial aid, attacks immigrants, silent when it comes to racial injustice or actively pursues it in removing protections from certain racial groups.
Or, conversely, to align with a group that supports the poor, supports immigrants, funds healthcare for the vulnerable, addresses racial injustice….and supports and funds abortion.
Most of my adult life I have been a single issue voter. If the candidate was pro life, they had my vote. It didn’t even occur to me to look at all of these other lives. Suddenly I am aware. Suddenly, the government is sending agents into cities and violently arresting people who speak with a different accent or are other than white. Suddenly, funding for health care is cut, deeply. Suddenly, the death penalty is restored in Washington, DC. Suddenly all of the Diversity, equity and inclusion programs are stopped. Suddenly, people are being killed in boats in international waters. Suddenly, more than 40 people have died in ICE custody since January 2025, primarily due to conditions and lack of medical care.
All affecting human lives. Lives created in the image of God.
I hold the unborn sacred. And I hold the immigrant sacred. And I hold the poor person sacred. And I hold the political prisoner sacred. And I hold the torture victim sacred. Because scripture requires me to. And I will not be silent about any of them simply because naming them makes someone uncomfortable.
So, the same blood that cries out from the ground in Genesis 4 for the unborn, cries out from the detention centers in Georgia and Texas and Pennsylvania and California. It cries out from the depths of the oceans where , according to NPR and multiple news sources, more than 100 people were bombed out of the water. It cries out from the ghetto where the woman can no longer feed her children because of cuts to welfare. It cries out from the hospitals and clinics where people can no longer receive health care because of cuts. It cries out from Iran, and Gaza, and Israel, and Cuba.
How do I reconcile it? I don’t. I can’t. I will fight for every human life that I can. I will speak to every person that I can reach about how loved they are, and the price that Christ paid for them. I will do everything in my power to help a pregnant woman in crisis to be able to carry her baby. I will help her find care, I will take her to care. I will open my home…I will love her and pray for her and walk alongside her. Because, she is not a murderer. She is not in her mind considering a heinous crime. She is making a choice for the safety of herself, her life, or the child’s in a society where she is often left on her own. And if she chooses abortion, I am going to love her anyway.
We’re at war. Well, I guess not technically, since Congress has not yet said that we are, and they are the only ones with the power to say so.
On February 28, US forces, alongside of Israel, began bombing Iran. They say there was an imminent threat, although there has been no proof thereof. I know you watch the news, so you know all of this.
There have since been over 200 verified reports that military leadership has said that President Trump is, “anointed by Jesus to light the signal fire in Iran to cause Armageddon and mark his return to Earth,”
I actually do have a number of friends and relatives that believe that Trump is God’s anointed choice for these times. One person asked me if I was challenging their faith when I first began posting about the things that were going on in the country right now. As if faith in God equated to faith in Trump!
And, this is an issue. The Trump administration ‘preaches’ a gospel. The gospel of Christian Nationalism.
The gospel of Christian Nationalism is that the right people, armed with the right politics, led by a divinely anointed strong man, can seize the institutions of cultural and governmental power, expel or subdue the wrong people, reverse the nation’s moral decline, and establish God’s kingdom on earth through dominion. Salvation in this gospel is not received by faith — it is achieved by victory. It is not offered to all — it is reserved for those who belong.
Galatians 1:8-9“But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed [anathema]As we have said before, so now I say again: If anyone is preaching to you a gospel contrary to the one you received, let him be accursed [anathema].”
Anathema is the Greek word used for accursed here. The Strong’s and Thayers Greek Lexicon translate this word as meaning: a curse, a man accursed, devoted to the direst woes.
So, what was the Gospel that Paul preached? In a previous post I talked about the Romans Road. A very simple map about what the Bible says it means to be a Christian. This road map is also a description of the Gospel that Paul preached.
In 1 Corinthians 15:3-4, he sums it up this way, “For I delivered unto you first of all that which I also received, how that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures; And that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the scriptures…”
The Gospel of Paul preaches that all have sinned and owe the wages of sin which is death. We are all condemned. No matter our ethnicity, or where we live, but all. That Jesus, born of a virgin, a Jewish man and a refugee, came to die (a death that was carried about by the government) and rose again to purchase our salvation and freedom from sin. And that salvation is a gift from God through faith.
I think that as Christians it is important that we recognize the distinction. The Scripture tells us to be careful that we are not deceived. “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. For if someone comes and proclaims another Jesus than the one we proclaimed, or if you receive a different spirit from the one you received, or if you accept a different gospel from the one you accepted, you put up with it readily enough.” 2 Corinthians 11;3-4
Ask yourself, through careful study and prayer, ‘What is this Gospel and that our administration is ‘preaching’? Who is this Jesus that they tell us they are following? ‘ Is it the gospel that Paul preached? Is it the Jesus that Paul preached? Or is it Anathema?
