Some of you are hurting right now.

You're confused, you're wondering how we got here.

I realized a few months ago that we were in confusing times, more divided than usual when a friend of mine who has a home in Manhattan, a home in the Hamptons, a lifelong Democrat told me she couldn't tolerate the Democratic overreach into her life anymore. In New York, they are dictating what kinds of faucets you can use, washers you can buy, even the kind of landscapers you can hire. There are lots of unintended consequences, they take showers twice as long or just sneak in faucets from other states. She was also deeply troubled by her parties censorship, for example, the blackballing of the governor of New York from the convention because he made a comment about the border that wasn't toeing the party line. It's a step away from Comunism, she said, so she was voting for Trump.

Then I had a dear Christian friend, an older woman who was so disgusted by Trump, saw him as mentally sick, someone who was never loved properly. She's greatly troubled why so many people would believe his lies. She wants women to be able to have the freedom to do what they want to do. She was voting for Kamala.

Everything is not what it seems, we want to try to make simple explanations for complex issues and complex people.

None of us really have enough information to make good judgments. Few of us really have any real understanding or knowledge. Most of what is happening is way above our "pay grade."

The few times I've been in and around positions of power and wealth, I've seen the mysterious and often dark forces that swirl around grasping for power and control. It is a very nasty place to exist, and really often the only people who want to get there have ulterior motives.

As I've reflected on this season, and so many of my friends on both sides of the issues, I empathize with all of them. But I also think of those who have suffered in the past both under governments and in their personal lives. It helps me put things into perspective.

I think of Job, who after he lost his children and his business and was covered in sores, after his friends and even his wife turned on him, and he finally questioned God about why this was happening, God's response was simply to ask, where were you when I laid the foundation of the earth, where were you when I decided the leaves would be their color?

In the last couple of years, as I have faced my own battles, including false accusations, having to hire lawyers for my defense, but mostly depending on the Lord to be my shield, there is one trait above all else that I have come to hold in high regard, and it is humility.

Humility is in short supply. Most people want to posture about how much they know, how great they are, why they are worth following, how they do not make mistakes, they do not need to repent, they do not need to apologize for any reason.

To me, the mark of a powerful man is his ability to humble himself. In fact, God's promise to every nation rests on our ability to collectively humble ourselves before him, and then we have a promise that he will heal our land (2 Chronicles 7:14). Is it possible to live in America and also remain humble?

The man whose life I most revere, the man I call my friend and my savior, Jesus, is the most humble in human history. He left the glorious halls of heaven to come into our mess, and he didn't come in power or might, he came as a baby, helpless, on the run, with a death sentence, in fact. And his whole life was marked by humility. Even those that mocked him and beat him, in humility, he prayed for them, he acknowledged that they did not know what they were doing.

Maybe right now you are right about your enemies, but do you have humility enough to see that they do not know what they are doing? Do you have compassion on them for this reason?

Or are you going to continue to lash out at those who disagree with you? To chastize them for their foolish ways, as if that will improve anything. You're just feeding the beast!

The internet has made this far worse, we all have a little soapbox to get on, spitting more poison into the pool. We would rather seek the hive mind, the endless drum of worthless perspectives rooted in our own little world fraught with recency bias rather than the eternal mind of Christ.

While I enjoy writing and sharing thoughts occasionally on here, it is inferior to the conversations I have in person, and I have found that in person, preferably over a meal, things are very different.

Last weekend I was at a family reunion where at one table sat two relatives who post online and are diametrically opposed to each other. And yet, over their chicken dinner, they laughed and hugged.

It is possible for us to put aside all of our great ideas and just love each other as humans. None of us is good, not one, and the sooner we get off our high horse, connect with each other, break bread together even (and especially) with those that are different, in humility, the more we will see peace and reconciliation.

This was the way of Christ.

And where were you when God set the foundation of the Earth and decided the leaves would be their color?