“I don’t know what the world is coming to.”
These are the words I sometimes heard from my mother when I was growing up after we had heard of the latest disaster or outrage on the BBC news.
Always war somewhere. Her father went off to fight in France in WWI. Her husband, my father, was away in the army during WWII. If she then hoped for a life free from strife, she was disappointed. Korea, Suez, Viet Nam, Congo, Cuba all followed, dark clouds on the horizon of our simple domestic life.
And then there were fast-changing moral standards. The slow loosening of standards in the 50s quickened in the 1960s. A neighbor was a divorcee, the subject of tittle-tattle in our street. A friend of the family was “effeminate” and treated with suspicion. A girl we knew had a “miscarriage”—somehow regarded not as a misfortune but an offence. And laws were changing fast to reflect such changes in social attitudes. And then there were the periodic natural disasters which were also part of our changing world. “I don’t know what the world is coming to,” she would lament.
Now my mother was a fringe church member, not well-versed in doctrine. But those towards the center of our faith community did know. They knew, or thought they knew, exactly what the world was coming to. And ye shall hear of wars and rumors of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass … (Matthew 24.6). Conflict and disaster everywhere—it was the prelude to the return of Jesus in glory.
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But the verse in Matthew does not quite end there. It continues: But the end is not yet.
And we still live in that interim, this uncomfortable place, every day. My mother died less than 20 years ago but she would have been astonished by the Internet and social media; angry at the lack of simple civility in public life; impressed by cell phones but unable to use them; overwhelmed by the strain which Covid placed on us all. And as for the world of Artificial Intelligence, she would simply have been unbelieving, and very anxious. And beside all this big-picture stuff, she had, like everyone else, to confront deaths and personal losses, and the disappearance of the familiar.
I find I can echo my mother’s words. I don’t know what the world is coming to. Even the most secular of observers will agree that we live in strange times and getting stranger by the day. I don’t know exactly what to expect before God judges that enough is enough. We’re in uncharted territory.
How shall we then live in this in-between time? How shall we live by faith?
There are no simple answers to this question. It would be wrong of me to pretend there were. We must each accept the responsibility of answering it for ourselves. After all, we have different personalities. Life has dealt with us rather differently. We are at different stages in our journey of faith. We see the world in different ways. I almost feel a fraud for writing about this and can speak only from my own experience.
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If life were a jig-saw puzzle, we as Adventists may claim to have the edge pieces but we still must put together the middle. How shall we then live? Live by faith? Jesus told his disciples to Occupy till I come (Luke 19:12-13). How do we occupy faithfully?
As always it is easier to write about the problem rather than offer any solution, but let me suggest a few ideas that seem crucial to me.
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Considering the vast problems confronting us today, it is entirely natural to feel a degree of anxiety and fear. So perhaps the first thing to recall is that Jesus said many times “be not afraid.” That does not mean that I can sail through life in a totally carefree manner. That’s unrealistic. I am afraid, quite often. But it does mean that, with the assurance of God’s presence with me, I may come to the place where such anxieties do not overwhelm me. Living without fear. It is a long journey.
I may come to that place by knowing, really knowing, that I am loved. Truly loved. It is a commonplace in all our religious life but to experience it at your core is something quite different. “God so loved the world” is true but “God so loves me …” may be more difficult to grasp. Loved, accepted for who I am. No need to keep justifying myself. It does not mean that God makes my way smooth. It may not produce warm feelings all the time. It does not mean that God approves of all that I am. But I am welcomed without question into the warm embrace of Jesus. Do I feel that warmth? Perfect love casts our fear (I John 4:18).
Some people will say that the key is to know my life has meaning. I, like most people, go through times when life just seems to be running into the sand. I need some sense of how my story fits into a larger story. It means having some of those edge pieces of the jigsaw in my life in place.
More important than that even is feeling, knowing that I am truly alive. Alive to the color of the world. Alive to others in all their different giftedness. Alive to joy but also to grief—they frequently go side by side. “The glory of God is man fully alive,” so said Irenaeus, a bishop in the ancient Christian church. Sometimes the world seems to deaden my spirits. Sometimes I am just overwhelmed and confused by the multitude of mixed messages I receive … even in the church. I want to be alive, alert, not running on automatic pilot.
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I have somehow to keep my sense of wonder alive. Familiarity can easily breed contempt. Or at least dullness. One of the temptations of the spiritual life is to make God into a mere concept. A known quantity. God is somehow manageable in that way. And I easily make the church the object of my religious devotion, not the Living God. This is understandable because the Living God may simply overwhelm but I can—and do—criticize the church in a way I cannot do with God. But, in the end, this way I only create idols in my own image. Somehow, I must keep my sense of wonder alive. Wonder at God’s presence in the world, in ways great and small. Vast mountains, daisies, and new-born babies. Displays of moral courage and everyday generosity … and everything in between.
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And then there is joy. It is hard to maintain a spirit of joy in a world where there is so much going wrong, so much hatred. Things going awry in my own personal world. So much negativism to dampen my spirits. But joy is not the same as happiness. Joy wells up from deep-down sources. It does not principally depend on my circumstances. And nobody promised that my life in God would be free from struggle. I must keep the flame of joy burning, come what may.
Go into the arrivals hall at a large airport and you may see a young child running arms wide open to meet a grandmother coming in on an international flight. The hugs! The uninhibited embraces! Pure joy! I would like to have that childlikeness which sometimes rushes joyfully into the arms of God.
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So, what do we really know in this confusing world?
That things are bad and getting worse.
That God will in His mercy call time on earth’s history. Things cannot go on as they are indefinitely.
That we have little idea when or how that may be, even though it is tempting to see ourselves as the last generation. So many others have thought the same over the centuries.
That the tide flowing against Christian faith is strong.
That the erosion of public decency and civility continues apace.
That the best is yet to come.
I must live in faith in a world which threatens to stifle it. I will not be crippled by fear in a world which trades in fear. I want a resilient faith which engages with present realities rather than simply living in some cozy denominational past, however formative it was for me.
I follow Jesus, a man who went against the stream. It may be that the in-between times are tough times for me and you for many reasons. We shall not go to the stake, but we will face all manner of threats to faith, many very subtle, some direct.
Even so, come Lord Jesus (Revelation 22:20). I want still to say that in all good faith. Not out of fear, but out of joy.
Jesus made “the darkness the very fuel from which is kindled the light of life” (Harry Williams, The True Wilderness, p 97. London: Constable, 1965).
I take strength from this.
Michael Pearson is Principal Lecturer Emeritus at Newbold College in the U.K. For many years he taught topics in ethics, philosophy, and spirituality. He and his wife, Helen, write a weekly blog pearsonsperspectives.com Email him at: [email protected]