When God's Love Trumps Our Hate For Trump

Let's just get it out in the open, I'm going to talk about something, well, super popular and unpopular at the same time. A person we all love to hate. Donald Trump.

But this is not a person God loves to hate, because He literally hates no one. Not one solitary person because hate is antithetical to hate. God IS love.

It's super easy to hate a villain, huh? We all love to hate one. And this year, many of us have jumped on the hating on Trump train. What's not to hate, right? When someone is referring to me, I'd rather hear, "What's not to love??!!", would you rather hear that?

But when it comes to Donald Trump it's obvious there is a lot about him to make ones blood boil.
I mean his racial slurs, comments and even faces (mocking). His derogatory comments toward women, (he's got a LOT of balls to say the things he says about women, let me at him!), his beyond appalling jokes about the disabled, I mean I could go on. It's actually quite unbelievable what comes out of this guys mouth, this HUMAN. I'm still shocked by his ego maniac-ism--is that a word? If it's not, I'm making it one now. I often think, "What on earth does his wife think? Surely she can't agree or condone this sort of behavior. Who could?"

God doesn't condone it, approve of it or like it. But I can tell you without a doubt, God loves Donald Trump. If God created US, He created The Donald. Donald Trump is precious to God. What?! Yes, precious! Just like I am precious to God, and you are precious to God. No one is exempt from God's love. Not even Donald Trump. As a Christian, I am called to love others and love my enemy.
This doesn't mean God made Donald Trump the kind of guy he is, (because we have free will), that could be a different blog post --how Donald got to be so obnoxious, but just because one doesn't condone, approve or like what someone does, it doesn't mean one can't love them.

What does loving them mean then? What does it, or would it look like to "love" Donald Trump?

For starters I think we can do the harder thing. Doing hard things are rarely based on feelings. It's usually things we must do to endure or persevere through. Sure there are things we plan to do that are hard that we want to do, but love, agape love, has little or nothing to do with how we feel about a person or a thing.
The harder thing here is to not jump on the Trump hating train. What good does it do our hearts? Is it changing us for the better by "hating" on someone or calling them names like most others do? It's super easy to call someone names, but a lot tougher to not give into that. So we could challenge ourselves to refrain from this sort of partaking. We simply don't have to add to the "hate".  How are we any different or better by wishing someone unwell, and calling them names? It might feel good momentarily to put that energy out in the world toward them, especially because so much social media is at our finger tips, but does it resolve anything? Is there something else we could do with that energy that would make a difference?

I think often times we give into this sort of behavior because we think "slimy" people need to "pay" for the way they behave or have behaved. Trust me, if anyone gets this, it's me. But all that brings me is more misery inside. All it does is get me worked up and bound up and hot tempered. Hate breeds more hate. But love, peace, contentment breed more of what we need in our hearts, love.

Love is an action, so we don't have to like Trump to not partake in the poor treatment of him. He treats others poorly so why do the same? What about the golden rule?

"Do onto others as you would have them do to you." Luke 6:31

This verse doesn't say, "expect the political animals, liars, cheaters, cruel and obnoxious ego maniacs like Donald Trump, you don't have to do this in regard to him!"

When God asks us to "love our enemies" He's talking about the very people like Trump (and Bin Laden, Saddam etc...) that hurt society by just being in it! Why?! Because of the upside down Kingdom of God and the radical message of Jesus! He's that loving and amazing, that we are asked to love "monsters", because God does. And that can be something as simple as not adding cruelty, name calling, bashing, and hate into the world. We can choose to see someone through the lens of Jesus, seeing them how He would. Which is seeing that people like Trump have an EQUAL value as a human in this world as any, anyone else.

Hard pill to swallow? That's ok, you don't have to agree with me. I just have learned through the years that all my hating and bashing of someone I don't like or strongly disagree with in the least bit, has done nothing to add to the beauty of the world around us. I know first hand that all it's done, whether it feels good in the moment, is add to the chaos in my own heart. And it's ugly & debilitating.

I'm free when I set the person I'm hating free, and it's no easy call to do that. But I honestly have no control over Trump's actions, or whether or not he'll win or not. I can't ever control the outcome of his destiny. But I can stand up for what I believe in in the meantime, and free the oppressed and speak up for the orphan, or the refugee, whatever I'm passionate about, but I don't have to hate on Trump while I'm doing that. I can tend to my own heart and not add to the hate because by golly, there's already enough of it in the world.