In this charged political climate, I’m making an effort to read things from both sides of every issue. What am I finding? Aside from a disheartening amount of name-calling on both sides, I’m finding that both sides also often have a solid point.

Usually I have a knee-jerk reaction to a subject…but I then take a step back and ask, “Why is this my reaction?” And I read something from the opposite point of view.

A few weeks ago, there were varying reactions to a statement from the Vice President saying that loving our own first is a very Christian principle. I read reactions renouncing this. I read reactions affirming it. Both quoted from the Bible in their defense.

Because, yes, Jesus calls us to love our enemy and points out that sometimes those supposed enemies turn out to be our neighbors.

And, yes, Paul also tells us we must care for our families and communities.

I let all the ideas swirl around in my head for several days, and then my husband shared a reaction he read. One that really resonated. To paraphrase, it was this:

Yes, we are called to care for our own. But not at the cost of others.

Protect your family–but don’t hurt another family to do it.

Feed your community–but don’t steal food from another to accomplish it.

This helped me immensely to put it all in perspective. As I’ve noted before, there are a million good things demanding our time and attention, righteous things, Godly things. But we simply don’t have enough–time, resources, or heart–to give to them all. But when we choose the things we will support and champion, we don’t hurt the other causes to do so (or we shouldn’t, anyway).

To dig wells in Africa, we don’t propose finding slave labor from Asia to do it. To send clothing to the Arctic, we don’t rob those in the Andes.

Yes, there is a natural affection for our own–our town, our county, our state, our country. Yes, we need to take care of those around us.

But not at the expense of others.

And that’s what has brought me sorrow as I watch the name-calling, the tearing-down, the attitudes I’m seeing all over my country right now. That no one seems to care who they’re hurting–not each other in our own country, and all too often, not those outside it. I am grieved as I watch the behavior of people claiming to be Christians. Not because of what they’re doing, necessarily, but because of how they’re doing it. Because they are gleeful about causing others pain.

You know why it hurts my heart so much? Because we as Christians are not called to put our own country first. We are called to put GOD’S KINGDOM first. And do you know what God’s Kingdom on earth is?

The Church.

The Church should be where our first loyalty lies. And yet I see so many believers putting their own agendas above all else and then claiming it’s of God. I see so many Christians claiming it’s for God that we treat others cruelly, because it’s necessary to protect what’s ours.

I see many of the actions being done and recognize that the end could be good. But the means matter, friends. The means ALWAYS matter. It doesn’t only matter who we HELP. It matters who we HURT in the process. That’s my new way (or new way of voicing, anyway) of determining which side to take on an issue. Why?

Because a few weeks ago, as I was praying over the outrage around us, the corruption, the greed, I asked the Lord, When is the right time for me to get angry? And I sensed Him clearly saying, Love them. That’s all you’re expected to do. Just love them.

Not just my friends, but my enemies. Not just our own, but the others. Not just those we agree with, but those we don’t understand.

Love them first. Love will give us understanding. Understanding will help us have honest dialogue. Honest dialogue will effect real change, lasting change, righteous change.

Let’s not settle for “getting our way.” Let’s strive to bring God’s way, God’s kingdom, into our every interaction.

It’s natural to want power. I think often it starts as a reaction–we feel powerless, and so we seek to rectify that. We are ignored or neglected or abused or persecuted, and we want it to stop. How better to stop it than to wrest power from the oppressors, right?

We want to take control. We want to gain authority. We want to be able to say, “No,” and know it will be obeyed. We want to be the one to set down the law, to make policy, to create the rules and enforce obedience.

And yet there is a truism we all have heard, and which I’ve never heard anyone try to argue isn’t true: Power corrupts.

Sure, there are limited examples of people in power who maintain their morals, their principles, their faith. But are we ever really surprised when dark secrets come out? Or do we shake our heads and wonder why, why power has this effect on people? Don’t we always wonder what has gone wrong or why people slipped into the very habits they’d originally been against? Don’t we wonder why people focus so hard on denouncing one sin that they charge headlong into a different sin on the opposite side of the spectrum?

As my husband and I were discussing reactions people have to traumatic events in their lives, these words came tumbling out. I hadn’t thought it through, but as I said it, it made so much sense. I said, “It’s the difference between power and strength. When people hurt, when they feel powerless, they think the answer is to grab at the opposite: power. But what they really need is strength.”

Strength to endure, yes, but also strength to overcome. Strength to grow. Strength to protect. Strength to create rather than destroy.

We see this difference in political circles, yes, but not just there. We see it in a bunch of the -isms too–movements meant to combat the status quo. People want change, and so they seek the power to effect that change. And maybe that’s the best or only way to get things to be different, I don’t know…

What I do know is that power will always hurt the people it’s taken from. Power will always seek the good of one group at the expense of another. Power will always be insatiable.

Strength, though… Where power is about taking from others, strength is about you. It’s about becoming, not having. Growing, not ruling.

I’ve had many people comment on how I write strong heroines–women who are doing things that are unusual for their time or challenging prejudices or shining through adversity. This is absolutely, 100% true. But I am far from a feminist. (One of those -ists or -isms!) I believe everyone, male and female, should find their own inner strength, their faith in the God who gives them that strength, first. I believe that we MUST be strong individuals in order to be part of a healthy relationship (whether that relationship is romantic or a friendship or a family or a working relationship). I believe we should all chase our dreams, whether that dream is excelling in a field that doesn’t want to welcome us or raising our children or following in our parents’ footsteps.

I believe that strong individuals don’t need power, because they have something better: authority that they have earned. Strength breeds trust. Strength breeds commitment. Strength breeds cooperation.

Power breeds destruction. Power breeds contempt. Power breeds control.

In our society today, I see so many people–people I agree with on 98% of things–willing to compromise so many things for power. I see people blindly following those who embody that power or promise to share it for the low cost of their vote. I see people breaking relationships over the desire to be right.

And I sorrow. I grieve. Because it’s so, so easy to mistake power for strength. It’s easy to look at “winners” and want to jump on that moving train because of what they promise us.

But friends, examine the cost. Who is hurt by our gain?

The powerful will always, always crush their opponents under their heels. They will lash out and oppress the ones they first called oppressors.

The strong will protect the weak, even when they’re not on the same side. The strong will pray for their enemies. The strong will sacrifice for their oppressors to show them a better way. The strong will walk the extra mile, will give more than is demanded, will turn the other cheek.

The strong will give love in the face of hate.

What are we seeking today? Power to force our will on others…or strength to seek the will of the One who promised us His strength when we are weak?