I’m so thankful that Compassion International is not a political organization and that its leaders will never make the news by taking a political side.

I’m an “ambassador” for Compassion – speaking in support of their ministry at colleges, churches, conferences, and concerts. I’m not an employee of Compassion International but I made the decision long ago to follow their wise example – to never risk distracting or detracting from the gospel and the work we do by being politically partisan in public.

I struggle though – and I’m sure many at Compassion do – to discern when silence is apathy or even complicity. How do we celebrate important political achievements, affirm political allies, decry politically rooted injustice, and encourage compassion from our political leaders without being partisan or perceived as such?

Can I root for righteousness and critique cruelty on all sides without you – any of you – calling me “partisan”? I hope so, because today I cannot be silent.

Today I’m thankful for Olive Aneno. Born into poverty in Uganda, today Olive serves the mentally ill as a social worker for the State of Georgia and cheers for the Dawgs. Thank you for making America greater, Olive. I want my daughters to grow into confident, godly, compassionate, selfless, beautiful women like you, but with better discernment when it comes to college football.

Today I’m thankful for Simran and Yosef from Ethiopia, who work at the Nashville airport. Thank you for telling me your story little by little. You’ve helped me understand why someone would leave all they’ve ever known to serve me food and carry my bags, the struggles you’ve had to persevere through, your hopes for the future, and how the rhetoric of this presidency has made you feel unwanted and afraid even here in the buckle of the “Bible belt.”

I’m thankful for Troy Livesay and the work his family does to serve mothers and babies through Heartline Ministries – Haiti. Their stories in my newsfeed testify again and again to the courage, strength, and resiliency of the Haitian people. Thank you for making Haiti your home, making its people your family, and showing me all the good God is doing there.

My president is accused of speaking a great lie yesterday by discounting the worth of millions of people God created in Africa and Haiti. If he said them, he did not speak for the majority of Americans. If he said them, he did not represent my faith. Such words contradict God’s.

“From one person God made all the nations”, Paul writes in Acts 17. All crafted and valued and spread out across the world by God.

“For God so loved the world,” the familiar words of John begin, reminding us that Christ loved to death not just one nation or one race or political faction but all of us.

John’s Revelation assures us that in Heaven we will worship God along with “a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb.” No nation will be left out.

Regardless of the president’s actions or rhetoric, you and I are to speak and live as citizens of Heaven, obeying our King’s command in Isaiah 58 with or without the agreement and support of politicians:

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter—
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the Lord will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the Lord will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.
“If you do away with the yoke of oppression,
with the pointing finger and malicious talk,
10 and if you spend yourselves on behalf of the hungry
and satisfy the needs of the oppressed,
then your light will rise in the darkness,
and your night will become like the noonday.
11 The Lord will guide you always…

I am not advocating for or against any party, or any immigration policy or philosophy. I am proclaiming – as loudly and clearly as I can from my little sliver of the internet – that I believe the Word of God over the words of any American president.