I’m growing tired of politics.
That may sound strange coming from a man asking to serve four more years as your County Commissioner. I get that. It sounds a little like a barber saying he is tired of hair.
But I do not mean I am tired of public service. I am not. I still love the work. I still believe local government matters. I still believe roads, budgets, land use, public safety, water, property rights, taxes, and basic competence matter. They matter a lot, especially when the people making decisions live close enough for you to find them at the grocery store and give them your opinion next to the frozen peas.
What I am tired of is the sickness around politics.
I am tired of politics as performance. Politics as identity. Politics as revenge. Politics as a full-time outrage subscription where everyone is mad, nobody is listening, and the loudest person in the room thinks volume is a substitute for wisdom.
That is not public service. That is a carnival without the cotton candy.
I have always tried to view my job as public servant, not politician. There is a difference. A politician worries first about staying in office. A public servant worries first about doing the job. A politician asks, “How will this play?” A public servant asks, “Is this true, is it right, and will it actually help the people I serve?”
I have not always gotten that perfectly right. Nobody does. If a man tells you he has served in public life and never made a mistake, check his pulse or his campaign consultant.
But the longer I serve, the more convinced I become that our political problems are downstream from something deeper.
Politics flows from character. It flows from faith, family, truth, courage, humility, and whether we still believe there is such a thing as right and wrong.
A lot of our public mess did not start at the Capitol. It did not start in Congress. It did not start with the governor, the president, the county commission, or whatever cable-news villain we have decided to yell at this week.
A lot of it started in homes.
It started when fathers checked out and mothers were left to carry what no one was meant to carry alone. It started when families stopped teaching children that freedom requires responsibility. It started when churches got quiet about sin, truth, courage, repentance, and obedience because those topics make the room uncomfortable. It started when schools decided forming children was too important to leave to parents, and too ideological to leave neutral. It started in boardrooms where profit outranked people. It started in hearts where pride, fear, bitterness, and comfort took the wheel.
We keep yelling about symptoms while ignoring the disease.
Scripture is not confused about this. Proverbs 14:34 says, “Godliness makes a nation great, but sin is a disgrace to any people.” That is not a campaign slogan. That is a moral reality. A nation cannot remain healthy when its people are spiritually sick. A community cannot flourish when truth is treated like a costume, family like a lifestyle option, children like political experiments, and courage like a character flaw.
Jesus said in Luke 6:45, “What you say flows from what is in your heart.” That applies to individuals. It also shows up in cultures. Our laws, campaigns, schools, budgets, entertainment, and public arguments eventually reveal what is in us.
And what is in us is not always pretty.
We want freedom without restraint. Rights without responsibility. Compassion without truth. Justice without judgment. Leadership without sacrifice. Forgiveness without repentance. Blessing without obedience. We want good fruit from rotten roots, then act shocked when the apples taste like politics.
This is where Christians need to be honest. Politics matters. It affects real people. It shapes schools, families, churches, businesses, neighborhoods, property, public safety, taxes, conscience, and the vulnerable. Christians should not retreat from it and pretend silence is spiritual maturity.
But politics is not ultimate.
Jesus is.
That means we should be involved in public life without worshiping it. We should vote, speak, serve, lead, challenge bad decisions, support good ones, show up at meetings, ask better questions, and refuse to hand the public square over to people with worse gods. But we should also remember that no election can resurrect a dead conscience. No ballot measure can replace repentance. No county ordinance can do the work of the Holy Spirit.
Government has a role. It is a real role. Romans 13 teaches that governing authorities exist to punish evil and promote good. That matters. Order matters. Justice matters. Public responsibility matters.
But government is not the family. Government is not the church. Government is not God. When we expect politics to fix what only truth, repentance, discipleship, and moral courage can fix, we overload the machine and then complain when smoke comes out.
So I am going to start writing and talking more about the bigger questions.
- What kind of people are we becoming?
- What did we lose?
- What did we trade away?
- Where did I screw up?
- What did I learn the hard way?
- How do we build something better before it is too late?
Those questions are political, but they are deeper than politics. They are spiritual. They are moral. They are personal. They are local. They belong at kitchen tables, in churches, in schools, in businesses, in county buildings, and in the quiet places where a man finally stops blaming the whole world long enough to ask God what needs to change in him.
That is not weakness. That is where rebuilding starts.
America does not need more people who can win arguments online while losing their own household. We do not need more leaders who can read polling data but cannot tell the truth plainly. We do not need more Christians who confuse being nice with being faithful, or being loud with being courageous.
We need people who tell the truth and take responsibility. People who can repent without needing a press release. People who laugh at themselves a little because pride is ridiculous and most of us are not nearly as impressive as our Facebook posts suggest. People who love their neighbors enough to serve them, challenge them, protect them, and sometimes disappoint them by refusing to lie.
Politics still matters.
Souls matter more.
And maybe the most rebellious thing left in America is not screaming louder, joining the right tribe, or finding a new villain to blame before breakfast.
Maybe the most rebellious thing left is telling the truth.
Repenting where we need to. Building strong families. Serving our neighbors. Teaching our children that right and wrong are real. Laughing at ourselves before we become insufferable.
And living like God is still on the throne.
Because He is.
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