In his post, Lord, make me an idiot, Alan Jacobs points to the efficacy and ability to focus on the task at hand.
This point is so important to keep in mind with the daily bombardment of news we receive.
The essence of it is this: Your surrounding circumstances should not change your day to day undertakings.
This is especially true for the theist.
After pointing out that Christianity may, or may not be, slowly dying in America, Jacobs asks if it makes any difference to us.
He says:
I’m going to argue that it shouldn’t be different at all, in any respect whatsoever. For the Christian, genuine faithfulness always makes the same demand: the whole of your life. As Bonhoeffer says, “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” He does not say, “When Christ calls a man in Nazi Germany, he bids him come and die.” Indeed, in a society that is comfortably Christian, this call may be harder to hear than in a society where Christian faith and practice are under assault — this is indeed the foundational insight of Kierkegaard’s work, from beginning to end. Jesus wants the people who hear his teachings to “read the signs of the times,” but what he means by that is: Understand that your Lord is among you — which is something that it’s difficult for all of us truly to apprehend. Further, I want to suggest that “reading the signs of the times” in a more familiar sense of those words has always been the chief bane of the Church. Christians have often looked about them and seen a world that seemed fundamentally hospitable to the Gospel, a world in which Christians can be at home, and that interpretation of their environment has led them to neglect the formation of their children and the strengthening of the bonds of community in their local church, leading to “the total collapse of the faith within our own families and communities.” We would do better to ignore the so-called signs of the times in order to focus on what Jesus demands of every Christian everywhere, without exception. Evil days may well come; but “sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.”
Do yourself a favor and read the entire post I have linked above.
And more importantly, reflect on it the next time you are worrying about a macro-sized problem.
