So you’re angry that Donald Trump won. I don’t blame you; I was shocked he made it out of the primaries. I myself was torn between Ben Carson and Ted Cruz. When neither of them won and Donald Trump took the nomination for the general election, I was disheartened.

I didn’t think it was possible for him to win.

I mean, come on, the guy lost by more than 2.9 million votes! How could he possibly be our president? Isn’t America a democracy?

Well actually, America is not a democracy like you may think. I know that sounds crazy. We’ve heard it our whole life growing up that America is “We the People,” not “I the King” nor “We the powerful group;” it’s the people! So if you’re confused as to why Donald Trump won despite losing the popular vote, you’re not alone; you’re just uninformed by a failed education system. Let’s look at the facts about how the voting process works.

America is a constitutional republic and a representative democracy, meaning that we vote in representatives to make decisions for us. That’s why we don’t go to a voting booth to vote on issues like Obamacare or abortion. Instead, we the people just vote on people to make those decisions for us. This makes our system run more quickly and efficiently.

In America, we have a bicameral system, meaning that we have a congress that is made up of 2 houses: The House of Representatives, and the Senate. The house of representatives more accurately reflects the population of America because places like Texas, California, or New York have more representatives than places like Wyoming because the house of representatives reflects the population of each given state. In contrast, every state gets to elect two senators to serve in the senate. Lastly, we have another group of elected officials called the Electoral College and they’re very important when it comes time to vote.

Each state is given a group of electors which is equal to the number of representatives they have in the house, plus their two senators. I’ve heard many times in my life people say things like “My vote doesn’t count” or, “It’s up the to the Electoral College, not me."

These statements are completely false.

Your vote does count because your electors are obligated to vote (in some states by law) the way that the people who voted them in voted. Since I live in Texas, my vote has a lot of worth because Texas has 38 Electoral College votes. That’s a big chunk out of the 270 Electoral College votes that the nominees need. So I look at voting as an obligation and a privilege, and we all need to recognize the importance of our vote because it does matter! Even if you live in a smaller state like Wyoming, you should still vote because every Electoral College vote counts.

You may still not understand. How is it possible to get more Electoral College votes than your opponent but have less of the popular vote? And that’s a good question that even I had to think about after the election. So let’s look at the numbers and try to make sense of what happened.

30 out of 50 states voted for Donald Trump, so that means that in 30 states, Trump won the popular vote. This also means that in 20 states, Hillary won the popular vote. The reason that Hillary won the popular vote overall is because there are a ton of democrats in California and New York. In fact, if you were to take California out of the election, then Trump would have won by a landslide. But the fact still remains that he lost the popular vote. However, the Electoral College serves the purpose of not letting a state become a monopoly. If we truly ran our election process like a democracy, California would almost always be the deciding factor, and that’s not an accurate representation of the American people. If that were the case, every election would be left up to the big cities of America to decide who would win. 30 states wanted Trump, 20 didn’t. I’d say that’s a pretty fair election.

The point I’m trying to make is that we need to stop holding the signs saying “Not my President”. Whether you hate him or love him, he is your president. He won it fair and square, the way our framers intended and the way America has always done it. Republicans: win humbly. Democrats: lose with integrity.

My final thoughts on this topic are that I’m delighted that my candidate won and I’m excited to see what he does. However, my faith is more important to me than my political affiliations, and although Trump is my President, he is not what I put my faith and hope in.

I’m comforted by the fact that in chapter 21 of Proverbs, King Solomon tells us that “The King’s heart is like a stream of water directed by the Lord; He guides it wherever he pleases”. God is in control, and although my chosen candidate may have won, that doesn’t give me the right to go and rub it in people’s faces. You might say that you have the right to say whatever you want to liberals who lost and you’d be right, as an American, you do. However, for me, as a Christ follower, I’m going to continue to be informed on politics, speak with care and empathy on the concerns pressing this country and try my best to be level headed.

You might say that during the campaigning, liberals were very rude and acted like they won before the election even happened, and you want to shove their loss in their face. As an American, it's your right to say that, but for me, as a Christ follower, I’m going to do my best to let the wounds of this nation heal and not stoop down to the level of my adversaries. I will not boast in conservatism, but I will boast in Jesus’ name. Christ didn’t say an eye for an eye; he said turn the other cheek.