More Than a Sound Bite

With last week's Republican presidential debates, the election cycle for the next President of the United States has officially begun.  We have now entered the season of endless commercials and tweets and sound bites, all designed to convince us to vote for a particular candidate.  For the next sixteen months, we will be subjected to a steady stream of chatter from these candidates, as well as from pundits and supporters.  Blah, blah, blah.  And so it begins.

On the Democrat side, it is generally assumed that Hillary Clinton is the nominee.  I would, however, remind you that the same thing was assumed back in 2008.  And we all know how that turned out.

On the Republican side, there is quite a large field of candidates.  Some are getting more attention than others.  Some did well in the debate, while others had a less impressive showing.  As I listened to and read responses to last week's debate, I often wondered if I had watched the same debate that others were commenting on!  Generally, it seems that many people are reacting to that debate based on who their preference was before the debate, rather than responding to actual debate performance.  For example, if Donald Trump was your candidate of choice, you likely think he did well and "won" the debate.  If you supported Rand Paul, or Scott Walker, or Marco Rubio, or Ben Carson, or any of the other candidates, prior to last week's debate, then you think your candidate came out on top. And on and on it goes.

Generally, I try to steer clear of politics in this blog.  It is not my intention to use this as a platform to persuade you to a particular candidate, nor will I use this as a platform to sing the praises of my chosen candidate.  If you want to have a personal conversation about politics outside this blog, I'll be happy to have a discussion with you.  This is not the place for that.

However, as we begin this long, arduous journey toward November, 2016, there is one caution I would like to bring before you.  We need more than a sound bite President.  The current occupant of the Oval Office was elected, at least in part, because he was (is) good at sound bites.  If you disagree with me about that, please read on anyway!

We need more than sound bites.  We need leadership.  These are difficult times in our country.  And regardless of your political persuasion, surely we can agree on that.  We have big challenges before us in areas of national security and the economy, and other
areas as well.  Because these are challenging times, we need to think carefully about how we are going to cast our vote.  We need to listen carefully to everything the candidates are saying.  We need to go beyond the sound bites, and beyond the opinions of political pundits.  We need to be a thinking people.  We need not only to listen to the candidates, but then to think carefully and analyze for ourselves what is being said.  We need to understand the principles by which each of these candidates can be expected to govern.

As we are listening, and as we are thinking, we need also to be praying.  Praying for God's blessing on our nation.  Praying for wisdom as we make our choices.  Praying for this nation to turn back to God.  And praying for discernment.

We need to hear more than just the sound bites.  We need to hear and understand the principles that guide these candidates in their decisions and their positions.

We need wisdom.  We need understanding.  We need discernment.

Don't be deceived by rhetoric and hyperbole and sound bites.

We need more than that.


"Furthermore, you select out of all the people able men who fear God, men of truth, those who hate dishonest gain; and you shall place them as leaders......"
(Exodus 18:21 NASB)

"You will know them by their fruits."  (Matthew 7:16a NASB)