Click here to download your free copy of 9 Questions Christians Need to Ask When Current Events Make Life Feel Crazy
Introduction
The year started with Australia burning, Prince Harry and his wife, Meghan Markle, leaving the royal family, shootings across Baltimore that left five people dead, Kobe crashing in his private helicopter, the President of the United States of America getting impeached, and a father killing his wife and three children and then himself.
And then the calendar flipped to February.
COVID-19 landed on US soil. Ahmaud Arbery was tracked down and murdered. Breonna Taylor was accidentally shot by five police. Governors across the US gave orders for people to “stay at home” in order to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. As a result, the stock market crashed. Businesses across the country began to protest.
Then George Floyd was brutally murdered and Black Lives Matter protests ignited across the US. Grace Community decided to defy the LA County orders not to gather indoors.
And then the calendar flipped to August.
Jacob Blake was shot and mortally wounded. The West coast recorded more acres burned than ever before in recorded history. President Trump caught COVID-19.
And we still hadn’t gotten to General Election Day.
Crazy current events are nothing new to human history. But perhaps you and I have never faced as crazy of current events as we are facing today. Catastrophic suffering is happening across the globe. The USA is more divided than perhaps ever before.
And, maybe the most disheartening, the church is more divided than ever before.
Is wearing masks complying with evil agendas? Should the church insist on meeting indoors, or should it adjust to a new way of structuring itself in light of the global pandemic?
Is calling it a “pandemic” believing Leftist lies?
Is empathizing with the Black Lives Matter movement aligning oneself with demonic powers? What is the role of the Gospel in racial justice? Should Christians participate in worldly governments? On and on we could go!
How do we navigate all of this? How do we navigate our families through all of this?
And, perhaps the question every pastor wrestles with at a soul-wrenching level: How do we navigate our churches through this?
There are no easy answers. In seasons of crisis, leaders face no-win decisions. There will be people who don’t like whatever decisions they make.
Furthermore, people in crisis struggle to know who to trust. And if you’re like me, trying to raise a family in the midst of all this, the anxiety of all the crazy opinions and perspectives keeps you up at night.
I’m not going to attempt to make sense of all current events in this guide.
I’m not going to tell you how you should think or what your position should be in relation to everything before us today.
Rather, I’m going to ask, and then process “aloud,” nine questions I believe all Jesus followers need to ask in times of chaos. When current events make life feel crazy, it is important that we who seek to faithfully follow Jesus ponder these questions. In so doing, we find a sense of clarity, peace, and a renewed vision and understanding for where God is at in all of it and where He’s wanting to take us.
The nine questions we look at in this guide are as follows:
- What does it mean to be made “in the image of God”?
- What exactly happened at “the fall”?
- What implications does this have for us today?
- What is the kingdom of God?
- Who is Jesus, and why do I need to remember this?
- Why doesn’t Jesus “deliver” me out of this mess?
- Why are Christians so divided in their views of these current events?
- What am I supposed to be doing right now?
- Will life ever get better?
Click here to download your free copy of 9 Questions Christians Need to Ask When Current Events Make Life Feel Crazy
So grab a cup of coffee and find your favorite place to read and think. Perhaps even grab a paper and pen and a few squeeze balls because these questions aren’t going to be comfortable to process and we’ll need to flesh-out our thoughts as we go. But please join me in pondering the following nine questions, and the implications they have on our lives.
Your sanity depends on it.
Asher Witmer
