Tough Times? Here’s Your Winning Move
A little verse that will free you up in a world with big problems
Do you ever slam up against your smallness? These times in which the world has been on the brink of nuclear war in Russia and Iran, make it a hard fact to ignore.
I did, recently. When I saw the clip of the French president with European counterparts—like the English Prime Minister—on a train to Kiev. They did an impromptu hit with the traveling press corps to discuss a visit with the Ukrainian president.
But before they could clear the table where they sat with what looked like a bag of cocaine and drug paraphernalia, the cameras were already rolling. Do you remember that famous clip that went viral online? It was much disputed. The bag of drugs was a used Kleenex, they said. The story seems to be debunked and strongly denied by the French government: Images were edited. This is disinformation.1
God knows if world leaders do heavy drugs together like party-hard college students. I honestly don’t. But would any of us be surprised if they do?
And I think that’s my point.
There was something about that video clip that made me feel both small and angry. Your feed gets interrupted with something sensational, potentially of global impact, and for 24 to 48 hours we have to all decide what’s true, what’s real.
But all that info and misinfo feeds into an atmosphere where real, faulted people have to make real decisions. Some of them of global consequence. Like whether to go to war, accelerate the bombings. Decide if they go with nukes.
If it were true—that, on the brink of a world war, as thousands die each week, as the world’s riches are virtually funding carnage, frat-boy leaders were on a bender on the way to a serious diplomatic mission—all I and any of us could do was watch. Helplessly, as they sheepishly addressed the camera while they pocketed their Kleenex/cocaine and addressed the planet on their bullet train to disaster.
The moment impacted me enough to find its way into my new dystopian fiction series 😂😬
Maybe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back. It reminded me how powerless we all are in the grand scheme of things. Little specks of dust in a big universe of burning stars.
Gee, I’m glad I tuned in this week Andrew.
How to be small in a world with big problems
Let me poke at it a little more, bring it closer to home. It’s not breaking news that we don’t have much ability to influence global events. In our own, local lives, there are lots of ways we can feel powerless too.
Right now, you may be going to the grocery store and feeling stress every time you go to buy a block of butter, strawberries, or a bag of coffee beans. Shrinkflation—less product for the same or a higher price—and inflation affects us all. Especially right now in Canada.
Then there’s the relational matters. Friends who aren’t returning the call. Family members facing major health issues. Job and career challenges. Whether its the cost of groceries or gas or something more personal, a circumstance that we don’t have power to change, so many of us are aware, more than ever, of our powerlessness.
This, of course, could become an argument for any of us to run for office, join the school board, get political to actually change things. Amen.
But I wanted to highlight a verse that my pastor mentioned from the pulpit that really stood out to me. It’s from the reign of King Asa after the nation of Israel broke into two kingdoms, split because leaders failed the people and turned from God. Asa came from a history of greatness, but was in a troubled streak.
An army of a million strong from Ethiopia came against Asa. His response was impressive. He prayed, “O LORD, there is no difference for you between helping the mighty and the weak. Help us, O LORD our God, for we rely on you, and in your name we have come against this multitude” (2 Chronicles 14:11).
They defeated the army. After the victory, a prophet came to him and shared this powerful word, both comfort and warning: “The LORD is with you, while you are with him. If you seek him, he will be found by you, but if you abandon him, he will abandon you” (2 Chronicles 15:2).
When outside forces came against him, he was strong. When his former brothers, the kingdom of Israel attacked a few years later though, he didn’t turn to God, he turned to the king of Aram and made an alliance.
And that’s when the prophet came and shared the verse that hit me like a lightning bolt of challenge and encouragement from the pulpit. Another prophet came and called Asa out for abandoning God, reminding him of his faithfulness in the past and why he defeated the foreign invaders: “Because you relied on the LORD, he gave them into your hand.” Cue the lightning:
For the eyes of the LORD range throughout the entire earth, to strengthen those whose heart is true to him.
~ 2 Chronicles 16:9
The original language here is so powerful. God looks over all the earth to show himself strong to those inclined to him.
What wonders! Imagine that.
In all our smallness, against the backdrop of world events so consequential and transformative in which we have so little effect or ability to influence, we’re seen by God.
In the midst of our local, private lives, no matter the enemy or struggle we face, his eye is on us too. All we need to do is incline our hearts. He shows up in our life to be strong on our behalf. To meet us in our need, whether in the grocery aisle, in the job hunt, at a loved one’s hospital bed, on the literal or metaphorical battle field.
Let the leaders of this world hide their bags of cocaine or crumpled Kleenex. I’ll hide myself in God.
It's the winning move.
Here’s a fact check by Yahoo (who knew it still existed) disputing the cocaine claim
Me too!