Politics are Depressing; But God Still Reigns

Is it just me, or do politics in general just no seem worth our attention anymore? It seems that any time I read anything from either the right or the left side of the spectrum, I leave feeling depressed and unsure. That's not a happy feeling for someone who generally goes through life with the optimistic belief that everything will turn out all right in the end and things are never as bad as they seem.

But things seems pretty bad now. The War in Iraq, the War on Terror, this bickering on both sides. It's hard to know where I stand politically because right now I can't agree with either party and neither represents me.

It's hard, because I want know where to stand politically. I want to know what to believe and to know that I am right. But life is not so simple, and it's difficult to pin down absolutes when it comes to political and social issues.

I could become apathetic. I once heard somewhere that pessimists should be the happiest people in the world because they are never disappointed and often pleasantly surprised.

But do I really want to go through my life a cynic? Allow myself to become bitter because I continue to be disappointed by frailty of human nature?

No, I believe the feeling of discontentment I'm experiencing is coming from a higher power all together, who is gently urging me not to seek security in the institutions of man, but in the constancy of his power. Not to rely on the counsel of men, but to lean on his truth.

God will do what he can to strip the illusions from the eyes of his children see they can see their need of him. C. S. Lewis puts it much better than I can:

"I am progressing along the path of life in my ordinary contentedly fallen
and godless condition, absorbed in a merry meeting with my friends for the morrow or a bit of work that tickles my vanity today, a holiday or a new book, when suddenly a stab of abdominal pain that threatens serious disease, or a headline in the newspapers that threatens us all with destruction, sends this whole pack of cards tumbling down. As first I am overwhelmed, and all my little happinesses look like broken toys. Then, slowly and reluctantly, bit by bit, I try to bring myself into the frame of mind that I should be in at all times. I remind myself that all these toys were never intended to possess my heart, that my true good is in another world and my only real treasure is Christ."

My hope is built on Jesus Christ. And through him alone can I have the assurance that everything will turn out right in the end.