We fear the apocalypse. We fear “decline” as Americans. We fear “losing our culture.” In general, we fear endings. Somehow we want to live in the dream of always upward in a world that always has the same result: all empires fade.

When thinking about decline, we should orient our lives around its inevitability. We tend to see life as an arc, with most of our conscious energy and societal imagination focused on growth and optimization peaking somewhere between birth and death. But what if our youthful formation was more intentionally constructed for denouement? If the fibres of education were not only to pull us up to the highest peaks but instead to anticipate the eventual fraying such that the few remaining fibres hold us up at the end with dignity and agency? Would our society be healthier if it were structured around the eventuality that there will be a last day, a last hour, and a last second? Or not? (Louis Kim in Comment Magazine, HERE)

Societally, it is a good goal to teach anticipation of fraying. But, culture being culture, it’s hard to know if we can make that switch. This is the power of the Kingdom of God. The only transcendent kingdom is the Kingdom of God. And we don’t have to wait, as believers. We too often tie in the kingdom of God with our cultural moment. The Kingdom of God is the picture of the stone in Daniel 2. It grows and grows when all other kingdoms come and go.

We live in fear as white American Christians because we have tied it deeply to our culture. I am the first one to admit I love living the U.S., I love studying U.S. History, and I understand even with the deep flaws there is something special here. AND I also see beyond that. Walking with the Lord over decades with the help of so many other voices like Dallas Willard, Howard Thurman, NT Wright, Richard Foster, and more, I have latched onto a vision that consumes me. It doesn’t consume me enough, at times. But believers live in an unshakable Kingdom. I want to latch on to what lasts. The only kingdom built this way is the Kingdom of God. And it is growing even now.

I can live with national elections and national strife and lunacy. What keeps perspective is the Kingdom of God. My response is the key. And that is my prayer. It is deep work. It is so deep right now it has a lot of pain with it. But my eyes are on the city of God, not the city of mankind.

 Since we are receiving a Kingdom that is unshakable, let us be thankful and please God by worshiping him with holy fear and awe. — Heb. 12:28, NLT