yeah....I'm not voting.

I was pretty sure about halfway through this year that I wasn’t going to vote in the presidential election in November. 

After watching the Vice-Presidential Debate, it’s official: I am not voting.

The problem isn’t that I’m apathetic—that I just don’t care about our country and what’s going on in it. That couldn’t be further from the truth. The issue is that I don’t have anything to vote for. I’m only going to be voting against something—and I don’t think that that’s the point of putting a check in the box next to “Obama” or “Romney.”

You see, all through the debate tonight, I noticed that the candidates weren’t really addressing why they should win the election. Rather, they kept going on and on about why the other person should lose. I don’t get that. I don’t want to back someone just because I don’t agree with the other person. I want to vote for someone because they make me want to stand up and shout that I’m an American, dammit, and proud of it.

I’ve learned that politicians are all the same in that they never do what they promise. So even if one of the candidates were to suddenly proclaim things that fulfilled my every fantasy of how our country should be……..why on earth would I believe them? They only say things that they think the public wants to hear. Once they’re in office, they pretty much don’t have to do anything they said they would. It sucks. 

And, let’s say I did believe strongly in a candidate. Let’s say I backed Mitt Romney 110%. What difference would my vote make? Texas is a Republican state. Has been for God knows how long. Even if I didn’t add my vote in with the rest, he would win the state. At the same time, if I believed completely in everything Barack Obama had to say, there would be no point in me voting for him—BECAUSE TEXAS IS GOING TO GO TO THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE. The Electoral College will make sure of that. 

Here’s the real thing, though…no matter who wins—no matter if we have the same president that we’ve had for the past four years, or if we’ve got a new guy—they will not be the one in control of this country. 

God will be.

HIS reign is supreme. And if you don’t believe in him, that’s fine…doesn’t make him any less sovereign. To the people who are campaigning for their candidates as though the world will end if their side doesn’t win—chill. God’s got this. Remember, he’s got the WHOLE world in his hands. When did we forget that and think that he’s not taking care of this part of the world? 

If Obama is reelected, God will reign. God will love his people. If Romney is elected, God will reign. God will love his people. God will provide for his people in all ways, in all situations. It might not be in the way we expect or the way we think we deserve…but we are all going to be okay. 

I know that not everyone will agree with me on this. Many of my friends don’t believe in any sort of higher power, so they will see this post as silly or even offensive. Even those I know who do believe will say, “But if you don’t vote, how do you expect anything to change?” The truth is, I don’t know. But I have made peace with this decision, and until somebody can make me want to fight for them, and not simply against the other candidate, they don’t deserve my vote.

Life will go on after the election. November, December (silly Mayans), January, February…All the way until Christ comes again. And I can’t wait until that day, when Jesus will be found chillin’ with his Republican AND Democrat (yep, he loves them, too) homies, and people won’t even remember that they ever worried about November 6, 2012.

Logic/Reason.

You know, I consider myself a logical thinker. A reasoner.

I really do. I mean, I've always been a sort of intellectual person...I question everything, and search for answers to things I don't understand. I want to know the how and why of everything.

I'm that annoying person who always says something like, "There must be a logical explanation." It's pretty common, I suppose, for people to rely quite a bit on reason to see themselves through situations.

Most people, however, when they think logically, come up with the exact opposite "answers" to mine. 

So let's start with a couple of definitions, just to make sure we're on the same page.

Logic:
noun
1.     the science that investigates the principles governing correct or reliable  inference.

Reason:
noun
1.     the mental powers concerned with forming conclusions, judgments, or inferences.
2.     sound judgment; good sense; sanity.   

It's safe to say the two terms are intertwined. It's hard to have logic without reason, or reason without logic. I feel that I generally use both, especially when making important decisions.


That being said, I chose at the age of seventeen to believe in something greater than myself. I chose to believe that there are forces at work that I can't even begin to comprehend...or, really, a force. And that force is God. Yahweh. Immanuel.


There are many who would say that, if I had been thinking logically, there is no way I would've come to the conclusion that there is, in fact, a God. It doesn't make any sense to them. Well, it does to me, and here's why:

The world sucks. Humanity sucks. People will argue with me, but I will not budge on this. We lie, we cheat, we steal, we murder, we envy, we belittle, we abuse, we destroy. Every. Single. Person. Now, we all have our vices. Some may have a hard time coping with lust or adultery, while others can't seem to get out of hatred's grip. We don't all always do the same bad things. But all you have to do is turn on the television to realize that the world we live in is a very broken place. Our species is a very broken species.


Why does this make me believe in God? Well, if this world holds no contentment, then there has to be something else. I refuse to believe that we have no purpose in living. That doesn't make any sense to me. If I'm not living for a greater good, then I see no point in living at all. So, when I see all the broken things about myself and about the rest of the world, I infer that there must be something bigger than all the pain and the hurt and the worry and the strife and the hunger. There must be something greater than just me. Salvation has to exist. If not on this world, then another.


This, to me, seems reasonable. It does not seem reasonable to think that there is no God, no good or evil...that we are just here on earth because chance brought us here, and we're just supposed to continue the growth of the species and wait for the world to end in a few thousand years. That is not reasonable. 


I also see no logic or reason in believing that our entire universe was created randomly. Here's an experiment to help prove my point. Fill squeeze bottles with different colors of paint. Now, take those bottles and randomly squeeze and throw paint all over a surface like a canvas or something. Be sure to not look at what you're doing. Just throw the paint everywhere. When you're done, check out your creation. Is there any symmetry? Can you see any sort of picture contained within the design without working too hard? If you really threw the paint around randomly, then no, you can't.


In contrast to this, look at a leaf. A tree. A piece of fruit. A human being. Cut them down the middle (except, probably not literally, in the case of the human being. haha), and...huh? What's that? Oh. Whaddaya know...they're the same on both sides. Now, my logic tells me that this could not possibly have happened randomly. It must have been designed.


Now, obviously, not everything on Earth is symmetrical. But every part of creation is so intricate...everything has an internal system that is extremely complex and at times, difficult to understand. Logically, random activity cannot create such complexity. 


And, anyway, random activity can't come from nothing. There has to have been a beginning somewhere...and tell me, logically--what could've created that beginning?

Now, I am not a scholar. I'm not a genius. I didn't read all this in a book about apologetics or hear it in a podcast from a famous speaker. This is just how my mind works. I decided, at seventeen, that logically, I cannot be the biggest thing about myself. 

I'm not "pushing" my beliefs on anyone. That's not what this is about. I don't want anyone to start arguing with me, trying to make me see their side of things. I just wanted to put this out there, and see if it reaches anyone (I don't even know if anyone reads this thing...but you never know). Now, if someone wants to ask questions and challenge me--please do! Questioning things helps you better understand them, and if I'm stumped, then I'll learn something, too!

This is bigger than me being right. This is about me wanting the world to see the light of Christ--to spend eternity wrapped in His arms. I share my beliefs not to belittle others'...I share them because I want the people I love to experience the joy and peace that I have found.

If I care about someone, then logically, I'll want to spend as much time with them as possible. And, well, eternity is a LONG time. So that would mean that I should do everything in my power to ensure that person's place in eternity.

I mean, it's only reasonable.