Standing Firm in Your FaithSample

 Moving Past Trivial Pursuits

Most Western Christians think about the future in self-absorbed terms, using words such as destiny and calling and phrases like “being what I’m made to be,” thereby reducing the future to a canvas upon which to paint personal ambitions. Meanwhile, we dream up ways to escape our mundane lives. Much of modern Western Christianity seems to involve looking for ways to improve comfort.

Sadly, we do not realize that we have absorbed a cultural construct that is not helpful to us—one that strays from the biblical world view. The Bible does not promise a pain-free life or the end of all suffering. It never tells us that things will be easy, or that we will be happy on this earth. As it turns out, self-fulfillment does not come from happy circumstances, and in any case, God’s blessings and favor do not match our culture’s definition of the good life. 

Eventually, by clinging to self-centered optimism (disguised as a modern form of biblical hope), we will become disillusioned and cynical, rolling our eyes with world-weary frustration at our misplaced idealism. What’s more, that will render us unable to lean into the help of the Holy Spirit that will be crucial in the difficult days to come. Our self-help positivism initiates a very different conversation from the one God wants to have with us about the future.

Looking at the world around us realistically, we can see that we may well be the final generation that the Bible speaks about in the context of the unique dynamics surrounding the Lord’s return. And it could be argued that many of us are practically incapable and emotionally unable to face, with true faith and courage, the unique challenges of the earthshaking trouble and glory ahead.

Yet when we come to the absolute end of our own strength and resources, we will discover that God is able to do breathtaking things to bring His people into their true destiny. He is our hope. The only way forward is to look to Jesus far more than we do the world around us. The more we know and love Him, the greater our strength and hope. The urgency of the hour requires that we cling to the things that the Bible calls wise and worthy of time and attention. In the meantime, we must stop justifying trivial pursuits.