The Gospel Reason Why I Went Into Politics

My journey to getting interested in politics started as a young mom taking my boys back and forth to their Christian school everyday. I had come off the mission field, deciding not to join up with Youth with a Mission as I had intended. One day, out of the blue, my best friend proposed. We started life together soon after. Early in his career, my husband, Tim, had a pest control company and after we married, I went to work for him. We had just gotten back from our honeymoon, and I wanted to serve in helping him balance his checkbook and run his office. But I also wanted to keep myself from having to commute through Dallas traffic to work another job, anticipating that we might soon have kids. (Tim)

From 1996 to 2001- Tim and I grew our Bluebonnet Pest Control business to nine trucks and fifteen employees. We enjoyed building a business together, having babies, and then raising our energetic boys. In those early years, we cut our teeth on business while parenting. After a while, Tim and I finally decided to sell – being exhausted from doubling the business year after year.

After recovering from that season and skiing all over Colorado for five weeks, we tried to figure out what we wanted to do when we grew up. Eventually we launched into the restaurant business.

Buying two, small, semi fast-food establishments called Roly-Poly, Tim and I were having fun learning a new line of work. Crafting Rolled Sandwiches were, in essence, making sandwiches with meats and cheese rolled up on large tortillas. We were learning restaurant Spanish with our guys in the kitchen, getting our food handling permits, and trying to figure out our profit margins.

Running one restaurant at Preston Center, right in the middle of the wealthiest part of Dallas, my store was open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. each day. This allowed me to take the boys to school and then pick them up, while leaving my assistant manager to close up shop at the end of the day. It was here when I was working at Roly Poly and running my kids back and forth to school that I started listening to a woman named Laura Ingraham on talk radio. Laura was smart, funny, and educated at Dartmouth University. She had clerked for Justice Clarence Thomas, and I found her absolutely fascinating. While listening to her every afternoon on my way home with the kids in the back seat, I started to realize that America was in trouble. Our nation was not all right.

I began studying biblical passages about the impact of one life on a nation from Daniel, to Esther, to Nehemiah, making notes in my journal. I realized that I had been narrowly focused on five-fold ministry gifts and living only inside of the church walls. Did apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, and teachers only reside as full-time employees of a church? – I contemplated.

Then I saw that these gifts were set in the Church by the Head of the Body – Jesus Himself – for the equipping of the saints FOR the work of the ministry.

“And He Himself gave some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, and some pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ.” – Ephesians 4:11-12

Did that mean that the work of the ministry was, in reality, outside of the church walls?

This paradigm shift in my heart and mind was setting me free from my narrow thinking of what ministry was and what it should look like. Then I read Jesus’ words out of Matthew, instructing us to be salt and light in the world. Our Savior called us then and now to make a difference, to disciple nations, and to promote His love, character, and values in this life.

I contemplated Matthew 5:13-16 – "You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt loses its flavor, how shall it be seasoned? It is then good for nothing but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot by men. You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lamp-stand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven."

Politics – the necessary process of certain people getting what they want in government – is not evil or wrong. It is necessary. I would even go so far as to consider it a godly struggle many times. When we have the government redefining marriage between a man and woman, when we have the government sanctioning the legal killing of the unborn in the womb, when we have the government running up debt into the trillions of dollars and printing money to cover up the effects, I believe the Church, if it does not speak, is in disobedience. We have failed miserably in this area to fulfill the call of God on our lives to protect and to “have dominion” on the earth – specifically in the nation where we are placed.

“Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.” – 2 Corinthians 5:20-21

Though we are engaging in politics to protect liberty and to strengthen America (one of the leading nations that fund the sharing of the gospel all over the world) that cannot be used as an excuse not to share the story of Jesus here. America’s strength is found in the hearts of her people and if her people are not healed, set free, revived, and grounded in the Word of God, then we lose the ultimate power of what makes us great as a nation. We must see God transform people’s lives each and everyday. Sharing the story of the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus and how it has changed our lives is the greatest thing that we can do in this generation. Period. Only Jesus can save and only Jesus can change someone’s life. If we don’t share Jesus with others – we are taking away and hiding our greatest instrument for change in our nation.

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