Our attention has turned toward Wall Street and its effect on Main                                   Street, your street and                                my street.  What will                                     be the fallout and                                    lasting impact?

Recently Joe asked,                                     “Will I ever get to vote                                     for somebody for                                    president?”  My                                      immediate answer was,                               “You can do that on                                 Tuesday, November 4.”                                    He responded, “There                                    is nobody to vote for.                                  All I ever get to do is                                      to vote against                                       somebody.  I want to                                     be for somebody.”

It is important that everybody vote.  Here are some suggestions about voting.

1.   Remember that it is a priceless privilege.  Blood, lots of it, has been spilled on dozens of battlefields to secure our freedom.

2.   Be properly registered to vote legally.  Fraudulently cooked up illegal names by the millions will probably be on voter registration rolls this year.  If you know of any crookedness, report it immediately to somebody like the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

3.   Study the candidates and find out, if possible, what they actually believe.  We all may know of candidates we simply do not trust. 

4.   No one political party has a stranglehold on vice or virtue.

5.   Help elect candidates on every level who are decent and honorable people who love our nation and have some degree of concerned intelligence.  We get far too many second and third rate men and women in the halls of government.

6.   Do not vote into office those who team up with anti-American crooks.  If candidates are not as “clean as a hound’s tooth” they do not deserve to be elected.

7.   Once you enter the voting booth, you may vote for whomever you wish and only God will ever know.

Robert H. Schuller’s best-selling book, Tough Times Never Last, But Tough People Do!, is being revived and widely read.  With millions of people frustrated and stressed, this book offers explicit help. 

Centuries ago, from the despair of a lonely cave, David, cried out, “No one cares for my soul” (Psalm 142:4).  In such times anger, animosity and anxiety tend to explode and the consequences can be eternally damaging.

In the most trying and difficult times of life it pays to listen to people of sound and positive experience.  Anybody can talk loud and long and say nothing that will offer any real help.

Years ago, I met a man of intelligence and profound wisdom.  W. Albert Donaldson was never loud or long.  He gave serious and researched thought to everything he said.  In his book, You Can Hope Again, he wrote, “We simply must have hope.  Without it the world has no meaning, existence no peace, and death no refuge.”

The Washington to which I refer is not the one where the United States Congress meets and which has had far too many men and women who were sleeping soundly when we got into the financial mess our nation is in today.  How can we expect them to get us up and going again when they apparently have no idea what happened?  Let’s hope the House and Senate will wake up as well as the church.

I like George Washington, the first President of the United States, who when the Colonies were discussing the possibility of breaking ties with England, recorded in his diary on June 1, 1774: “Went to church and fasted all day.”  He was a man of integrity, intelligence, wisdom and faith -- the kind of person we always need as our president.

Years after David cried out for help, Peter wrote advisedly about “Casting all your care upon Him, for He cares for you” (I Peter 5:7). 

There is hope.  There are those who care.  If we make the right decisions when we vote we can elect leaders who can lead us through our present troubles.

© 2008 Wm. C. Ellis
All Rights Reserved

Bill Ellis
Award Winning Syndicated Columnist
P.O. Box 345
Scott Depot, WV 25560
304.757.6089
www.BillEllis.Net