God shows us that He always deals with nations through the leaders and this is no exception. Who knows…this may finally be the wake up call to the church. We have lived as a rebellious, self-serving, elite bunch of hypocrites for way too long. The church is run like our nations government instead of how scripture teaches us how God’s government works. Babylon will fall and it won’t just be the nations system…the Babylonian church will fall too.

I pray believers will wake up (including myself) and realize that it’s time to be crucified with Christ and live for the glory of God and pray for His Kingdom to come, His Will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

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and so now we know that joe is actually sam’s middle name, that he owes back taxes, that he’s not a licensed plumber, that he’s a registered republican and that he had little understanding of obama’s tax policies. i abhor that he was vilified in the blogosphere, to the extent that some very private and personal information about him was posted.

sam may be an average, hard working man exploring his options to better the future of his family by buying a business, but knowing what we know now, it’s easier to see that he was asking a question not for an answer, but to make a point. as a registered republican (and from the talking points he’s subsequently offered up to the media readily) it’s not difficult to see that his question was framed more by rhetoric than by honest inquiry.

in my opinion, this is what makes the video so remarkable. when you watch the entire episode unfold, the five minutes of discourse that occurred before obama uttered the words “spreading the wealth around,” you see a man who takes the time to stop and explain in detail how his plan works, how sam had nothing to worry about, how he would probably pay less tax, that if his business was actually profitable enough to net $250,000, he’d still have relief from capital gains. you see a man trying to connect with an average joe. even if he didn’t have his vote.

personally, that is what i want from the leaders of my country.

unfortunately, when mccain chose to take only a sound bite and to offer up sam as a metaphor of the evils of socialism, we lost the entire context of the discourse that took place that day. and this is often the case, not only in politics, but in life: we hear what we want to hear. we grab one phrase, hold on to one word, connect the dots in whatever way will continue to reinforce our prejudices.

truth be told, i want something better.

for all of us.