Those of us living in the United States have just endured a presidential election. Regardless of whether any of us are happy with the results, I hope we were deeply troubled by the process.

Presidential candidates should have focused on the difficult problems facing the United States and how they proposed to begin solving them. It wasn’t that many years ago when platform was at least as important as personality.

Not this year.

Why did our opportunity to look at where we are as a nation and where we should be turn into a mud-slinging affair about defects of character, real or imagined?

Even more worrisome, why did the men and woman who were actually trying to share how they would attack our problems get ignored by the news media? Entertainment was valued over information, and that decision hurt us all.

Accusations, innuendos, and denials drove the coverage, and the truth of any of it didn’t seem to matter to many in the media.

Even scarier, the truth didn’t seem to matter to many supporters and opponents of a particular candidate.

Where are the candidates who want the greater good instead of personal gain and glory? People who embrace core values of honesty and integrity and who try to put those into practice are out there. What will it take for more of them to run for office and even win?

Hopefully, many of the women and men elected yesterday believe that facts matter, that what they say should be truthful, that what they do should be honorable. But why do so many seem to live as if personal success is more important than personal honor?

We’re all guilty of doing things we know we shouldn’t, things God has said are wrong. But it’s never too late to change, even when we haven’t always lived by the highest standards. We can’t change our past, but we can change our present and future. When we ask, God will even help us do it. He loves us just as we are, but He also loves us too much to want us to stay that way.

I hope you’ll join me in praying for our elected leaders to be honest servants of the people. We need leaders who are worthy of our trust.

Let’s pray that they will seek God’s guidance in the difficult decisions they must make.

Let’s pray that they will have the courage to do the right thing instead of the easy thing or the thing that might give them a personal advantage.

Let’s pray that our leaders will love truth and live lives of integrity. Those are the kinds I people I want to follow.