This election is killing me. I want to stay away from it, but I am fascinated. I may even watch the final debate tomorrow. Like the proverb says: “As a dog returns to its vomit, so fools repeat their folly.”

On the one hand I am fascinated by Hillary Clinton, the first woman president. What fire it takes to do what she is doing! She was criticized by the pundits after the last debate for not “taking Trump out.” She was criticized for somehow not bullying Donald Trump! Just that one criticism kills me, among the thirty years of investigation she has been under. She was the most admired woman in the world before she decided to run for president, now she gets journalistically groped every day. It takes courage and passion for us all to stand up and do what we need to do. She’s got it.

On the other hand, I am appalled that we are paying so much attention to two bonafide members of the one percent duking it out to be king or queen of the elite. Hillary Clinton is so cozy with the world’s domination system it would be surprising if she manages to see outside the bubble. The people at the top really think they own the world and need to take care of it. At least Donald Trump is generally despised among the elite as a brash idiot who can’t help opening the curtain and exposing all the secrets. We all tune in and suck up the illusion that we are not their slaves. Many people believe that one of them is somehow going to represent their interests.

So I am getting killed. But I am also rising from the dead as a result. The whole spectacle gets me fired up for Jesus, since it is making it so obvious that we need some alternativity around here. We need a Savior and we have one. The whole mess inspires me to burn like Hillary and to take seriously all the opposition a burning person gets. We Jesus followers, we alternative makers need to burn with passion, burn with the Holy Spirit, and burn with industry as the people of God. People who follow Jesus in the next five years have a Hillary-like task ahead of us, complete with bullies stalking us and trying to make us afraid enough to dominate.

It is time to burn. We need to be our true selves and the world needs us to be. If we are fearful in the face of our opposition so be it. We’ll still need to follow Jesus, and see what happens. We need to give what we have been given.

Humble but ambitious

We need to be humble but ambitious like Paul taught the Philippians to be — Not that I have already obtained all this [fullness I am talking about], or have already arrived at my goal, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. All the ways to picture our empowering relationship with God are inspiring!

• I lay hold of that for which I was laid hold of.
• I embrace it just as I have been embraced.
• I apprehend that for which also I am apprehended.
• I win that which Jesus Christ has already won for me.
• I make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own.

I want to receive what I have been given. I want to give what I been given. That is burning in the new-life-in-Christ sense.

At some point we just have to do something. We need to give what we have been given. Let ourselves burn with the fire of the Spirit, go with it. We have the capacity to do that built in. We are not just what we’ve derived from the chemicals fermenting inside. We are also what our fiery relationships with God ignite. It has always been time to do something. But now it is just painfully obvious. The candidates are doing us a favor but making it all plain. The disconnected, vain elites are wounding the system they dominate so badly it will be limping for years. As Jesus followers, we embody the alternative as we trust Jesus and one another.