I recently read an article about the Sage sub-committee that was tasked with altering our behaviour at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Turns out that they were alarmingly successful in inducing fear – the results being way beyond what they had hoped for.

Some of the members of that committee retrospectively expressed concern about the manipulation in which they engaged, likening it to a form of totalitarian behaviour. While it is faintly hopeful that there was belated expression of remorse, there are plenty of people in leadership positions who will show no such qualms and in fact will quite happily use the same tactic again. The Bible talks about such as these:

The Spirit clearly says that in later times some will abandon the faith and follow deceiving spirits and things taught by demons. Such teachings come through hypocritical liars, whose consciences have been seared as with a hot iron.

1 Timothy 4 v1-2

How unhinged many people were, and often still are, should really come as no surprise. As I mentioned in a recent post, we live in a pagan society surrounded by the rubble of our judeo-christian heritage.

Many people in our society have no underpinning, have no faith or hope beyond the here and the now. It’s hardly unexpected that such a society responded this way – and will do so again when the next shaking comes. And come it will.

Fear is an extremely powerful motivator and the only real antidote for such fear is faith. This is why I have said and continue to say that we need our lives to be rooted strongly and deeply on Jesus Christ. Nobody else will do, nothing else is ever going to work, no programme, no organisation, no government will provide us the underpinning, foundation and stability that comes through trust in the Rock of Ages.

In these times the only sane people in the sea of panic will be those rooted on this Rock. Those panicking people, organisations, societies and governments will do terrible things in the name of their fear, justifying it later to themselves in any way they can.

We have to be salt, we have to be light, we have to be the hope that is in the world. If we’re not that then we’re nothing of value – just more lost souls adrift in the crashing seas, submerged by wave after wave, panicking and grasping for anything offering hope.

The clarion call again of this time is to be ready. We have to know who and whose we are in order that we might help save some of those shipwrecked by the waves. If we’re not ready, we’ll find ourselves in in the same tempestuous and raging sea.

This isn’t a word for tomorrow or sometime in the future, this is a word for here and now. This is the world in which we live, as all that has seemed sturdy will prove illusory. The world where our creature comforts are going to be taken away from us. A world where we must be radically different.

We can only shine as lights if we are a different lumen factor than the world around us. Of course, we can do none of this in our own strength. But Jesus Christ is a strong tower, our fortress. He cannot be shaken and he can do what none of us can. We must be found in him. There is no other place.

As a side note – I’m currently slowly working forming something that might be a word for 2022. The things that are unseen are real, whilst so much of what is seen is illusory…