Our Way Forward is Loving Jesus
For the next few months the alarms will sound across America: “this is the most critical election in years….!”
I don’t necessarily believe that.
The temptation will be to join the national chorus and fill the air with the sound of our own worried voices, or even worse, roll our eyes in exhausted cynicism and eject from the national conversation altogether. Elections do matter and who leads our nation in times such as these is inarguably an important subject. However, the business of “clicks” and readership lives for these kinds of national moments, eager to capture and keep the attention of audiences through the election cycle and beyond. Therefore, the narrative will be highly charged and the state of emergency will seemingly demand all our attention.
These kinds of narratives seek to keep our attention (and serve advertisers) by aiming to inflame the heart rather than merely informing the mind. This is very problematic, because it is critical that we keep our hearts engaged elsewhere. It is good business to turn today’s problems into a national crisis. It is profitable to turn readership into a captivated audience, spending their emotional currency on the unfolding drama of our national decline.
This is not our assignment, nor is it wisdom to play along.
Jesus set our collective priority in seasons like this in Matthew 25 and the Parable of the Wise and Foolish Virgins. He urged us to prioritize “buying oil”, a similar mandate to the one He gave the Laodiceans in their lukewarm compromise. For the Laodiceans, the oil represented the fire of interior passion for Jesus that would help them overcome their spiritual lethargy. In Matthew 25, there is an additional layer of the “burning lamp” - a motif that Jesus had used previously to describe John the Baptist (a “burning and shining lamp”). In each instance, there is a consistent theme.
Jesus asks us to prioritize the interior fire of love for Him, and when that flame of love burns brightly, many will be helped and able to “see” because of the light of our love for Jesus. The inner flame of love is meant to be the fuel for all that we do in ministry, family, our occupation, our friendships, and beyond. Prioritizing and pursuing an interior fire is never easy, in any season. Pressure and busyness throws many distractions in front of us, demanding our attention and, in the case of what I stated above, our very heart and emotional capacities.
We must fight to wrestle our schedules into submission, fight to unplug and disconnect for a moment from the national narrative and the business of our attention. We must fight to ignite and cultivate an inner fire of love and desire for Jesus that will anchor and stabilize our lives. To do so is to wisely prepare for the real shaking and trouble that lie beyond the immediate concerns and troubles that afflict our nation. What we are experiencing today is real, and concerning, but not alarming. There are days of real alarm coming, and to invest in our interior lives is the wisest use of our time to prepare to delight in the Lord without fear in those days.