{"id":1629,"date":"2020-08-24T15:09:28","date_gmt":"2020-08-24T15:09:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?p=1629"},"modified":"2020-08-24T15:09:28","modified_gmt":"2020-08-24T15:09:28","slug":"politics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html","title":{"rendered":"Politics"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Politics! Good grief! Can we get away from it? <\/p>\n<p>There are times I want to pull the covers over my head and forget about it. But we cannot do that. We live in a world dominated by politics &#8211; it seems to contaminate everything &#8211; even the church.<\/p>\n<p>What are politics? According to my dictionary it is: &#8220;the science or art of political government, the practice or profession of conducting political affairs, the use of strategy or intrigue in obtaining power, control or status&#8221;. <\/p>\n<p>It seems odd that the definition contains the word politics or political. When I was in school that was not allowed. You could not define a word with itself. But so many things have changed, maybe that has too.<\/p>\n<p>But politics seems to be a nasty business. A lot of maneuvering and manipulating to get others to do what you want them to. Truth gets lost along the way. <\/p>\n<p>Is there an honest politician? I can&#8217;t answer that. I would certainly hope so.<\/p>\n<p>But our solutions will not come from politics or politicians. They can formulate all the policies they want. Give all the speeches we can stand.They can stay in the basement or they can have public rallies. They can wave their banners and post their signs. They can organize us to the hilt. They can promise us the moon &#8211; which I think they do and can&#8217;t deliver. <\/p>\n<p>Why do we get caught up in it?<\/p>\n<p>I guess it&#8217;s in our human nature. We hope things will get better and we look for someone to make it better. The truth is there is no one on the horizon that can fix this country or world. No one. The is no policy that will solve our problems. It matters not if it is the &#8220;new green deal&#8221; or health care for all&#8221; or a new vaccine. <\/p>\n<p>Nothing touches the real issue: man&#8217;s sin and need of a Savior.<\/p>\n<p>While I can be fascinated with politics, I know that is not where my hope is. My hope is in Jesus. He is the hope of the world. He alone has the right policy: repentance and forgiveness from Jesus and loving your neighbor as yourself. Simple but hard to implement because our human nature is sinful. But we have a power the world knows nothing about &#8211; the power of the Holy Spirit. He convicts us of our sin and brings us to repentance. Then He comes to live in us to empower us to love our neighbor as ourselves. <\/p>\n<p>That&#8217;s our hope &#8211; our only hope.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Politics! Good grief! Can we get away from it? There are times I want to pull the covers over my head and forget about it. But we cannot do that. We live in a world dominated by politics &#8211; it seems to contaminate everything &#8211; even the church. What are politics? According to my dictionary&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":466,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[599,131,256,596,292,584,593,590,587],"class_list":["post-1629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-health-care","tag-hope","tag-jesus","tag-new-green-deal","tag-peace","tag-politics","tag-repentance","tag-savior","tag-sin"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Politics - Safe Place with Ruth Graham<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"noindex, nofollow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Politics - Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Politics! Good grief! Can we get away from it? There are times I want to pull the covers over my head and forget about it. But we cannot do that. We live in a world dominated by politics &#8211; it seems to contaminate everything &#8211; even the church. What are politics? According to my dictionary&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Safe Place with Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2020-08-24T15:09:28+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Ruth Graham\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Politics - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","robots":{"index":"noindex","follow":"nofollow"},"og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Politics - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","og_description":"Politics! Good grief! Can we get away from it? There are times I want to pull the covers over my head and forget about it. But we cannot do that. We live in a world dominated by politics &#8211; it seems to contaminate everything &#8211; even the church. What are politics? According to my dictionary&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html","og_site_name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","article_published_time":"2020-08-24T15:09:28+00:00","author":"Ruth Graham","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html","name":"Politics - Safe Place with Ruth Graham","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website"},"datePublished":"2020-08-24T15:09:28+00:00","dateModified":"2020-08-24T15:09:28+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/2020\/08\/politics.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Politics"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/","name":"Safe Place with Ruth Graham","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Ruth Graham","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/#\/schema\/person\/76d20e190c3b83823997a9f422b86975","name":"Ruth Graham","description":"\u201cTransparent\u201d is the word most people use to describe Ruth Graham. No stranger to heartache, she seeks to provide a Biblical perspective to her journey of faith. She is warm and talks openly about her own need for a safe place as she journeyed through her husband\u2019s infidelities, her subsequent depression, her divorces, her teenage daughter\u2019s two unplanned pregnancies, another daughter\u2019s bulimia, her son\u2019s battle with drugs, grandson's special needs and returning to school at age 40. Although born into the \"famous\" Graham family Ruth did not feel she had a safe place to unburden the secrets of her life. She felt she had to project and image and wear a mask that she \"had it all together\". She had to meet others' expectations of her. It was not until a mid-life crisis did that she fully discover the unconditional love and grace of God. Her life's passion is to connect people to that same grace and love she found, no matter who they are or what sin. Ruth is an experienced conference speaker and Bible teacher. She has appeared on a variety of radio and television shows including: Good Morning, America, The Hour of Power, Focus on the Family, Moody Broadcasting, Fox &amp; Friends, CBN, Life Today and CNN. She has worked in publishing for over 14 years and is the founder of the Ruth Graham &amp; Friends Ministry. Ruth has three grown children and nine grandchildren. She lives in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia. Her life Bible verse is John 1:16.","sameAs":["http:\/\/ruthgrahamministries.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/author\/rgraham"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/466"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1629"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1640,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1629\/revisions\/1640"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/safeplacewithruthgraham\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}