A few years ago I was absolutely obsessed with politics. I read the news voraciously, I devoured blogs, and I complained nonstop about the country’s direction and the political system.
There was just one problem. I wasn’t actually changing anything. I could see what needed changing, but I was putting all sorts of emotional energy into worrying about something that I couldn’t actually do much about.
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I’ve got over 2,500 posts on this site, and sometimes they aren’t relevant anymore or, like this one, I decide to update it for current events and rerun it. You can find the new version here:
I’m Sheila, and I write all about how when we invest in our marriages and our kids, we end up with happier lives, more effective lives, and more purposeful lives. And in the long-run, our relationships are much more fulfilling!
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I like to help women see beyond our culture’s superficiality and the pat answers to problems our churches often give, and help build strong, fulfilling, and passionate God-honouring relationships. That’s what I do. And if you follow the rabbit trails (just click on some links in the sidebar, or the links above!), you’ll find a lot of material to keep you busy.
And hopefully a bunch that will help you.
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Sheila Wray Gregoire has been married for 29 years and happily married for 24! She loves traveling around North America with her hubby in their RV, giving her signature "Girl Talk" about sex and marriage. And she's written 7 books. About sex and marriage. See a theme here? Plus she knits. Even in line at the grocery store.
Sheila,
LOVE what you’ve said here about influence, and so appropriate around election time. (I know some believers can and do have influence in politics and I’m glad of it, but it’s not me!) But such a good reminder of where to be investing my time and energy. My three boys are all still living at home and they are my primary “mission”. (In a different way than marriage because childhood has a limited time frame, y’know?) Here, in my home and church and community is where I want to involved and invested.
Julie
Amen! I have to admit I watched the election results come in Tuesday night, but I’ve pretty much been ignoring politics other than that. I can’t have a big effect, so I’d rather work where God has planted me.
And it reminds me of the prayer of Jabez, too:
(1 Chronicles 4:10)
I think God “enlarges our territory” when we work in the areas that we do have influence. Then our influence spreads!
To be fair, I do pay SOME attention so I can vote productively – and I DO vote in every election. But that doesn’t stress me out or consume lots of time 😀
I’m the same way–I do read the news every day and I’m relatively well informed. I just don’t read the blogs or the commentary anymore. So I keep it to a healthy (I hope!) minimum.
I agree – we need to put our time and mental energy into things we can actually influence.
I think there is also a time and place for declaring that something is important enough to us that we are going to work to gain the right to have an influence. A challenge for me is figuring out which things I need to pray more about, and which things I need to give time to beyond that. There are so many things!!
The politics thing reminds me of an essay (Meditations on the third commandment) C.S Lewis wrote about a “Christian front” in politics. His conclusion was basically that founding a Christian party was futile and dangerous because they would be too small to be effective. So they’d have to latch on to a bigger party with roughly the same ideology and end up compromising on morals/ principles.
So his conclusion was that the best way for Christians to influence politics was to write letters to the politicians. And. His final line is something like- I forget. The third way for Christians to influence politics is to convert your neighbors.
Use your sphere of influence, spread the gospel and make small, concrete differences in peoples lives around you. After all, if we somehow managed to convert all the Muslims- no more ISIS ect.
Exactly! Love it.