The historic election is over; President-elect Trump gave his acceptance speech just before 3 AM Eastern time this morning. Some United States citizens are elated over the prospect of Trump’s presidency and some are downcast at the collapse of our government. Many of us are somewhere in between.

What do we do? The smoke has cleared. The election is over. What do we do? I recall being distraught when President Clinton was elected in 1992. I don’t remember exactly what I thought would happen, but it was not good. I expended emotional distress for naught. The sun came up. The birds continued to sing and fly south for the winter.

I would suggest that we do exactly what I would’ve suggested if Secretary Clinton had been elected. Most people want to have a positive affect on friends and loved ones close to them and on the greater world around them. The way we do this is by realizing that all of our actions and choices are important and add to the society in which we live. I am a Christian, husband, father, church member, employee at Cedarville University, and have numerous other roles and relationships. Post election, what I need to do, it is to do the very best that I can in the place, in the roles, and into relationships into which God has placed me. I need to behave in a principled, moral, and ethical manner. When so doing, I will have a direct positive impact on loved ones and friends. But, I will also have a positive impact on the greater world around me.

We all want to have a positive God honoring impact on our world. The way most of us will do this is to be very good spouses, parents, church members, and employees. Most of us will not have high profile positions where we directly affect large number of people. Most of us will not be Mother Teresa. Most of us will not share the gospel with as many people as Billy Graham. But all of us have the opportunity to make good moral and ethical decisions on a daily basis. We do have an important and direct impact on people around us. And by treating each decision and each action as eternally important and significant we have an incalculably important role in the world. And, of course, all of our actions are judged by God.

Milton Friedman is credited with saying: “… the sum of negligible forces need not be negligible.” When our human actions are good and Christ honoring we add to and help shape our culture in a good way. This is what we do. As individual people we produce the fruit of the Holy Spirit which people around us will then feast on. Each individual act of goodness and kindness may seem small and may supposedly go unnoticed, but when taken in conjunction with other people’s acts of goodness and kindness a decent culture is built. We are to “… do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God” (Micah 6:8).