Learning

I was looking through some of my posts below, and besides the long period of time that has passed since I wrote anything, I noticed something else. I focused a lot on politics, some of which was important, some of which wasn't. Some of what I wrote I still agree with, some of it I wish I could erase, such as the Perry article.
When I went into my freshman year of College, I thought a lot of things that appear silly now. I have learned a lot from the last few years, and one of them is that the government will not fix our problems. It matters very little whether Ron Paul, Mitt Romney, or President Obama is in the White House, and it matters less who controls congress. What matters is us.
For those of us who are Christians, we are called to live out the commands of Christ, to let his light shine through us. We will produce far deeper and more lasting good on this world if we simply shine the light of God onto the people around us. If we consistently love one another as Christ loved us we will have an impact that the social conservatives have only imagined.
Look at a few of the big social issues the Church is concerned with: abortion, marriage, and welfare. If every christian young man lived responsibly, kept his word, honored the women around him as Paul commanded, and was generous to help the people he knew, those three issues would shrink overnight. The Church needs to clean its own house before it can send people out to clean up the culture.
I am far from perfect, as my buddies in the Corps can tell you, and I have failed many times to uphold the commands of Christ in everyday life. When we are faced with failure in our immediate lives, it is easier to blame the fall of society on Congress or on the courts, as I well know. As Christ said, we must remove the log from our own eye before we can remove the spec from our brother's.