First off, I must say that I am indebted to Pete Grieg of 24/7 Prayer for this post, as he is the one that stirred these thoughts.
2011 was a tough year for much of the world. Japan experienced a tsunami that cost many thousands of lives and did untold damage to the environment that won't be understood for years to come. Tornadoes whipped through the US. Dictators fell and cities were occupied. Many (including my brother) never were not employed a single day during the year.
It is easy to feel off-kilter after such a year. If the environment can wipe you out at any moment, your seemingly stable government can fall and your well-earned career can fall apart at any moment, then what's safe?
There is a tangible feeling of..something in the air right now. 2012 is the end of the world for some. May 2011 was supposed to be the end of the world for others. Tea Partiers want to reclaim their government, while Occupiers want to reclaim their economy. In the Philippines, many would settle for finding loved ones alive and well after recent flooding.
As a Christian, I feel a great pressure to be able to discern "what it all means". I feel like I should be able to turn to a passage in Revelation or one of the Gospels and capture with eerie clarity what age we are in. I, however, feel unable to do so. Simply put, I feel like a driver on an unknown road, navigating more by sense than map.
Maybe leaning into the road analogy is the best way to proceed. There is a commercial in Allstate's popular (and hilarious) "Mayhem" series that I resonate with. These commercials depict an actor who represents all of the possible calamities of life. He can be a raccoon destroying the insulation of your house, a Christmas tree falling off of the roof of your car or a GPS unit leading you astray. In the GPS commercial, he is sitting on the dash of the car, gleefully dispensing bad directions. In our world today, I feel that we need the anti-mayhem...we need someone occupying our dash with proper directions, even if our destination is murky.
In Matthew 6:33, Jesus instructs those who follow Him to: "seek first his kingdom and his righteousness and all these things will be given to you as well." This very famous instruction comes in the middle of the Sermon on the Mount; Jesus' ethical treatise is every bit as challenging and inspiring now as it was 2000 years ago. Before this line, Jesus has instructed His people to give quietly to the needy, to endure in prayer, fast essentials in secret, to store treasure (and value) in heaven and finally, to not worry.
Jesus' lordship is a transfer of our priorities. Our priorities shift from the here and now to heaven, "where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal." You could add to that, where governments are not overthrown and where unemployment is not 10%.
This does not mean that Jesus' way is simply disengaging from this world. It means placing your security in another world and kingdom, so you can operate in this world with no pressure to win, succeed or advance. Jesus' way is a way that looks like reckless risk, but in reality there is no risk at all. To live Jesus' way in an unsure time is to drive on the dark, unknown road listening to the dude on your dash because where he is taking you is better than where you were heading anyway.
I am proposing that a feeling of uncertainty creates the opportunity for us all to see more accurately than we ever did before. The world has always been uncertain. When our false security erodes, we are given an opportunity shift our investments to where they belonged in the first place.
If we're not careful, 2012 may make us numb again. The economy may rebound for enough many, that we forget those for whom it did not. Environmental tragedies may slow enough, that we forget the "mundane" tragedies of famine, human trafficking and poverty. We may, again, simply return to an apathetic existence. We may replace our angst with once again competing for the best toys, jobs, grades, homes and spouses.
We live in an opportune time. It is a time when it is perfectly reasonable to ditch reasonable aspirations for Jesus' narrow road. It is an opportune time to bet fully on the Kingdom of God. The hold of money, upward mobility and success has been weakened, but for how long?
I wonder what it looks like to step into something new? What does it look like rediscover just what is that we are made for? In the now seemingly far away era of the early 2000's, the band Switchfoot claimed, "We were meant to live for so much more, we've lost ourselves".
What does it mean to know find ourselves again?
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