This week we will elect a president.
Depending on the outcome, you may conclude the correct side won or lament where our country is heading.
But if your candidate of choice wins, you will for sure know people on the other side of the vote who are hurting and fearful.
The issues this election season — as well as our experiences in 2020 — are deeply personal and widely polarizing.
The higher our emotions rise, the farther the emotional crash.
Your neighbors (who see things differently than you) don't need your condescension this week; they need your compassion because we're all in this together.
They need you to come alongside them, not as an opponent but as a person, and ask:
Why has this election brought you pain?
What's causing your fear?
How can I help?
How can I pray?
This type of curiosity and love doesn't come naturally to us and requires a cost we're often not willing to pay — humility.
But there is an obstacle that gets in our way — a civil war in our chest that keeps us from other-centered compassion.
We all know this enemy as pride.
Something Deeper Needed Still
Tim Keller describes pride this way:
If we are puffed up by air and not filled up with something solid, then to be overinflated or deflated comes down to the same thing. A superiority complex and an inferiority complex are basically the same. They are both results of being overinflated. The person with the superiority complex is overinflated and in danger of being deflated; the person with an inferiority complex is deflated already. - Tim Keller (Source)
Many Americans will be inflated or deflated by the end of this week. And perhaps the degree to which you are lifted high or brought low will show you to what degree you've put your hopes in a politician.
If we're going to love one another like Jesus in the wake of this election, then we will need a supernatural humility that takes our eyes off of ourselves.
Remember what's true this week
As Scotty Smith has said,
Let's recap what's true for this week (and after):
Real pain and fear will impact people you know this week.
Real pride shades the way we interpret the highs and lows of life.
A faithful Savior named Jesus reigns in inexplicable ways over all the disorder we see.
Sincere compassion is needed if we're going to love our neighbor as ourselves.
Genuine humility is required of us.
All these are true, and we must hold them all in tension. May we be the kind of people who consider others better than ourselves (Philippians 2:3).
Who can you show the compassion of Jesus to this week?
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