It’s over. We have a new president-elect and regardless of how you voted, it is impossible not to acknowledge the historic implications. I know some are cynical, som are angry, and some are afraid of the days to come.
To those who are afraid, I would tell you that you need to have a little more faith in the statements that “God is in control” and the prayers that you prayed that God’s will would be done. One of the things that I will always have to acknowledge a former pastor for teaching me is that fear is not of God.
To those that are angry, I can only speak for myself in that I have no desire to gloat. (My vote didn’t count anyway, because Arkansas went to McCain.) I felt that McCain’s concession speech was profoundly gracious and wisely determined to urge his followers and party toward unity of purpose for our country.
To those who are cynical, I encourage you to latch on to hope however you can. As the biggest cynic I know (most of the time) I know that cynicism is not going to help anybody make anything better and we might as well just give up.
shacknotes.com 
Trevor
November 7, 2008 at 7:55 am
it doesn’t feel particularly historic to me. i think the main if not only reason it has been called that is the skin color of barack obama. and i’d like to think that while it may seem historic to some people today, hopefully in the future it won’t be worth mentioning any more than, say, the first left-handed president.
i do believe that we’ve been “ready for a black president” for a long time, it just hasn’t happened to happen until now. the fact that it has now happen proves that we are ready, but the fact that we make a big deal of it proves that we aren’t as ready as we should be.
i admit that it does feel a little cool to me that we elected a “black” (a silly label i think, since no one is actually black in color, but shades of brown) president, but that feeling is only based on artificial divisions that are in a literal sense racist. so to some extent i’m a racist for feeling that way, rather than just feeling “hey we elected a youthful inspiring person to be president.”
elclang
November 7, 2008 at 8:00 pm
i can relate to your statements about cynicism, as i have become quite the cynic myself in my old age. you know what’s funny? before i knew God, i was hugely cynical, to the point that teachers would point it out to me in high school. then there was a period of time when i was positive and hopeful. then, back to cynicism. i dunno what happened. life, i guess. but there’s a definite correlation between my attitude and how active my faith is.
something i’ve felt super convicted about, in the days leading up to and the days since this election is that i’m not doing near enough to back up my beliefs/ideals. the reality is that if we were doing our part, there wouldn’t be such a need for things like government programs for the poor or the elderly, etc., etc., etc…. i feel like in a lot of ways, we’ve been sitting around waiting for someone to require good of us.
i’m not terribly excited about the way the election went, but it would be stupid of me to complain, when i could be out doing something positive. regardless of who’s in office, we each have our own tasks and our own means to help spread the love of God.