^{Key passages of scripture: Matthew 24:37-39, 25:1-13}

I used to read passages of scripture with a lot of fear and anxiety because I knew I wasn’t really a “good Christian” (whatever that means). 

I don’t anymore. 

One thing that 2001 and 2020 taught me was that everything in the world seems naturalistic, and materialistic, until there’s suffering, trials, and tribulations. Because we’re so shallow as Christians in our relationship with God, few coped well with the Pandemic and Terrorist attacks. In 2001, people turned back to God and filled churches because they knew they needed help outside of themselves and awakened them to a spiritual reality. The Pandemic, however, did the opposite. People became more evil and rebellious. Few, coped well through it and still suffer from the affects of post traumatic stress. We have not been trained in the skills and ways of processing and metabolizing negative, traumatic events. So, it stays in our bodies and affects our health, performance, and relationships. Yet, Christians trudge on, as if they’re okay, things are okay, and there’s not much more to live for other than success, money, or the “American Dream.”

2020 really revealed to me how shallow my culture and American Christianity are. When the floods came and beat against the house, many houses fell because they were built on sand and not on the solid rock. If you don’t understand the analogy, the house is your being – your character, temperament, spiritual maturity, and quality of relationship with God and others. The flood was the virus that sent people and governments into panic, suffering, fear, stress, and anxiety. The sand represents that internally, leaders of nations, churches, and individual people didn’t have the fruits of love, joy, peace, patients, kindness, gentleness, and self-control within themselves to respond to the flood. These qualities would be produced from a house built on the rock of Jesus Christ. Instead, they had the fruits produced from hearts set on sand – the cares, desires, and drivenness for the things, affluence, and comfort that satan and the world deceitfully offer.

Are you doing the hard work of mourning and grieving the affects of shame, sin, and rebellion in your heart? The flood revealed the hearts of men and they refused to repent and turn to God for repentance, salvation, and resurrection. What keeps your heart from acknowledging, speaking, or naming your heartache?

If you don’t do this work with someone who is trained and can gain your trust, you will not be ready when the next flood comes. Are you prepared for the storm coming?

It’s time to build your spiritual Ark so that you can weather the storm. Build your house on the rock by revealing the contents of your deepest and darkest thoughts and emotions in your heart. Then allow grief, sorrow, and lament to bring you into the healing arms of Jesus so that you can be resurrected into a new spiritual character that loves and desires the things of God. 

Are you secure in God’s steadfast love? Or are you still operating in fear that you haven’t done enough, aren’t good enough, or anxious that God will judge you?

Fill your lantern with oil so that when the bridegroom comes, you’ll be ready to enter with him (Matt. 25:1-13). When will you see the futility of the American Dream? “The one who through self-effort achieves success and makes his soul happy.” This is a partial, alluring truth, a delightful delusion, the workings of wickedness. Desire the spiritual food that comes from a broken and humble heart. Seek to know and desire God. Enter the chambers of your dark sin and the shame that imprisons you. Allow yourself to become broken, desperate, and needy that God might become your Savior.

This will build in you a spiritual Ark and fill you lantern that you might endure and gain Christ. The next flood is coming. Are you preparing for it?