My buddy Ed Underwood has a blog that you may want to check out. His weekly post is called Tipping Points and he offers the same intermittent wisdom that you have come to expect from this site. The bonus is that Ed offers wisdom with fewer words than your humble rambler. After posting my article this week I opened up Ed’s offering and found that great minds (and minds like ours) think alike. Here is Ed’s take on the current political scene. Because of ego and a lack of self-confidence I rarely give my space away. I am proud to give this space to my friend Ed Underwood.

Belief You Can Change In!

Change seems to be the issue of this presidential election. One party promises to bring change we can believe in and the other warns that we need change we can depend on.
 
This tells me a couple of things about our country.
 
First, everyday people want change because of a deep dissatisfaction with life.
 
Second, politicians and most of those voting for them really think that changing the circumstances of life will somehow help—that finally Americans will say, “Now, I’m satisfied. Now that the economy is better and I feel safer in the war on terror.”
 
In my younger years I was a political animal. I even majored in political science.
 
But here’s what I’ve noticed as elections and presidents come and go: Not much changes.
 
My friends marched to a war in Vietnam ; I stood on the frontier of freedom as an Army officer during the cold war, and I’ve said goodbye to my son two times on his way to Iraq with his Army units.
 
The ghetto’s still hopeless; gas still feels like it costs too much; a lot of people still want to kill us; and the cultures still godless…only a little more godless than it was back then.
 
Changing power in Washington might help for a while, but it won’t last.
 
Why? The problem’s not on the outside; it’s on the inside.
 
What we really need isn’t change we can believe in that just rearranges the patio furniture on a crumbling cement slab. What we really need is belief we can change in!
 
Only Jesus Christ offers that type of change. When we believe in Him, we become a new creation. When we believe what He says about us—that we’re not who we use to be and we don’t have to live the way we use to live—the resurrection life within us begins to transform us.
 
When I believe what Jesus says about me—that His life within me is this world’s only hope—I become a better man. When I become a better man and encourage my family to believe in that hope that is within us—we become a better family. When my family becomes a better family and encourages other families in our neighborhood, church, and city to become better families—we become a better neighborhood, a better church, and a better city.
 
Now there’s a change that offers lasting hope…but it all begins with belief.
 
To them [those who receive His life by believing in Him] God willed to make known what are the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles: which is Christ in you, the hope of glory. —Colossians 1:27

By the way, Ed has a great new book (that I proudly endorsed) called When God Breaks Your Heart: Choosing Hope in the Midst of Faith-Shattering Circumstances . The forward is written by Joni Eareckson Tada. If you or anyone you know is suffering this is a book you must read.