As the politics of the day have turned my heart from concern, to indignation, to fear, to humble prayer, my intellect and emotion have found common ground in the truth that there exists a “Donald” in all of us.
Donald J. Trump is 70 years old, the oldest person to be sworn in as president in the history of our country. In the political factions and fray of the past months, any failings and shortcomings that can be dissected and held up from his life have been splashed across the public canvas like harsh graffiti for all to judge and scorn.
“No different”
I have cried out with the rest at the injustice and flaws I found in his humanness. Behind the first reactive emotions came the realization that I am no different than he is. I see, in Donald Trump, a human being with a heart and humanness vulnerable to mistakes in thought, temptations, judgment, choices, words and attitudes.
Indeed, he is human like me. Thanks be to God that my flaws and the flagrant mistakes and misjudgments of my life have not been held up for public scrutiny, for I would never fare as well as the 45th president of the United States. Granted, I didn’t run for that high office. I can’t imagine the undaunted courage it must have taken to weather the public assaults and continue the journey to where he sits today.
I believe God equips us to carry out his plans for us. I believe he uses the unlikely to accomplish the amazing. We see that time after time in the Bible. I believe in the plan and the planner and in prayer.
Works in progress
We are all works in progress. None of us is perfect. The only perfection we ever will know is that perfection found in Jesus Christ.
And so, we lumber on, down wrong paths and with missteps, tripping and falling and getting up again. We lead others down misguided walkways fraught with dead ends and drop-offs. But we keep walking, looking for the right path, the right way to get to where we believe we should be. It takes courage to keep walking, to take the lead and not run and hide.
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All of us are given a powerful light for our paths if we choose to let Christ be the lamp that lights our footsteps. We don’t have to light our own way, and we move into darkness when we try to walk solely in our own light.
The campaign, the election, the inauguration and the first 100 days and beyond are not really just all about me or you. There is always a bigger picture. We are all changing, growing in understanding and realizations. We travel together. God knows our hearts so that only he can judge us. He holds us all accountable.
Hard choices ahead
The president has hard choices ahead. He has a tough, troublesome, twisting road to travel; and he has my prayers. God can equip Donald J. Trump and the Donald in all of us with discernment and strength and opportunity and goodness if we seek that guidance from God.
I pray for Donald J. Trump and for the Donald in me and in all of us, that we will look to Christ and do our best to follow God’s word to love him and to love one another, to see through his eyes, and to live out boldly his love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control—not in partisan factions, protest and finger pointing—but always in prayer.
Marcia Davis is a freelance journalist and media consultant in Plano: freelantzmedia@gmail.com.
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