NOTHING IS LIKE IT WAS

I am now of an age that when I tell stories of my early years to younger parents, they look at me with a mixture of disbelief, and sometimes, horror. Horror in that they can’t even imagine doing or allowing their children to live as I did.

If you are older, too, you know what I mean. My (and likely your) childhood days were often lived outside away from your home. You had friends a block or two or three away, and you’d hop on your bike and ride over and see if they were home and ready to play. Our parents rarely knew where we were during the day. They just knew we’d show up eventually, usually around supper time, and all would be well.

I grew up in a suburb of Los Angeles, and we lived about three blocks from Glendale Union Academy, a few more to the Voice of Prophecy headquarters, and a couple of blocks from where the Glendale Sanitarium and Hospital was. They had a nice pool there that had a great summer membership rate for Adventist families, and a guy in their maintenance department would fix your bike’s flat tire for free when the need arose (as it did a few times for me). He treated me like fixing my bike’s tire was the most important thing he had to do that day.

Sometimes I’d ride my bike all the way up to Shoal Canyon Park at the top of Glen Oaks drive. It was a hard ride up that long, gradual hill, but nothing compared to the thrill of riding it back down again, though I was always careful to slow down as I passed HMS Richards’ house. I knew he didn’t see really well, and I wanted to make sure I never hit him!

Of course, allowing your kid to roam around the neighborhood or ride several miles away from home just to enjoy a downhill ride is unthinkable for most of us. A new normal has taken root and is pretty much a full pendulum swing the other way. “Helicopter parents,” we were called. By definition, these parents pay extremely close attention to their kids’ activities and schoolwork to protect them from pain and disappointment, and also to help them succeed. They’re known to micromanage their children and become extremely entwined in every aspect of their lives.

But this new normal comes with a price: because these children were never taught the skills to function independently, and because they may have been held to unattainable or even “perfectionist” standards, children of helicopter parents can experience anxiety, depression, a lack of confidence, and low self-esteem. But that was just the new normal.

But now, we live in “postnormal” times. The norm for us is that nothing is normal anymore. Nothing is like it was. So much about our world is no longer recognizable to us anymore. Just as we get used to some new seismic change, we are forced to face yet another one—and we never seem to have a vote on whether or not this is a change we want!

Where is a good Adventist Christian to turn to for an anchor in times like these? We may find some comfort in our apocalyptic charts and timelines, because we have long expected for things to get really crazy. And while there is some comfort in that, there is not enough comfort for these times.

For me, I find the most comfort in reliving Biblical accounts. Funny how often it turns out that ancient writings can speak to modern times. Right now, I’m thinking of a man, who in just a few seconds, lost everything he knew as normal. I know it only took a few seconds because I’ve been through a number of earthquakes and know that, though these seem to go on and on and on, most of them only last a few seconds.

But for this Philippian jailer, the rumple and the shaking formed an immediate realization that his prison, as secure as he formerly thought it was, was no match for the power in that temblor. His postnormal was terrifying. He personally would be held accountable for every prisoner who would escape, and he harbored no hope he would survive this. In fact, he would die by his own hand. He didn’t see this coming, and he could not escape this devastating change that was now his to face. But to his utter astonishment, the two men responsible, as it were, for the earthquake—Paul and his duet partner Silas, assured him no one would be found missing.

You could say the postnormal had been abated in that all his prisoners were still there. But something had shifted inside his soul, and he knew that from this day on he was living in different times because he was different.

You can tell he was still living in a soul’s postnormal state because Acts 16.29 says that he rushed in a fell trembling before Paul and Silas. Why was he trembling? The earthquake was over, and every prisoner was accounted for.

You can tell because he desperately asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” Would it be too far a stretch to rephrase this as “Sirs, I don’t know how to live in this postnormal world of mine. I am changed. I am undone. What must I do now? How shall I survive and live?”

“Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved …”

Could that simple declaration be enough to help you stand through the complexities of living in a society that seems about to crumble? Could it really be that believing in Christ Jesus and following Him is enough to stabilize you in a world where there seems to be a new earthquake every day?

For me, He is enough. My hope is built on nothing less than Jesus’ blood and righteousness. Is He enough for you?

Mic Thurber is the RMC president. Email him at: [email protected]