A Time magazine cover shouted up at me from a doctors office side table: Why We’re Losing the Internet to a Culture of Hate. It was an eye-catching headline, an pathetically endearing sketch of a troll, and in-depth article about fear, cowardice, self-loathing seeping onto others doorsteps and then declared a timeless universal truth, “You want to say this is the bad guys, but it’s a problem of us” (Stein).
Throughout history societies have felt that same tension arising from the bone deep feeling that a nondescript ‘we’ has found ourselves in a losing position. We are losing something (our kids, our wholesome American values, our freedom, etc.) to a dangerous ‘otherness’ of hate, evil or ignorance (so declares every side of every political election ever). We fear that we are losing our identity, we are losing access to privileges we think we deserve, we are losing the culture war and the greater war of good and evil. Each generation looks at those before them and declares they won’t allow lost battles to be repeated. That things like the Holocaust and civil war and 9/11 and melted ice caps and AIDS won’t occur in the world we carve out for our children.
As much as my human heart identifies with this fearful fist, tightening its hand on the sands of time, God is shifting my perspective to something else, something hopeful and true. He tells me that none of this is mine in the first place. Not my money or my stuff or even my closest family and friends and certainly not the elusive identity of ‘we’. He’s asked me to loosen my grip on life’s expectations because it IS all sand. Beautifully, ironically, the sands of time are not mine to harness, the evil of today is not mine to either absorb or fix, and the internet trolls do not present a reason to panic. Those things are God’s to redeem. My Father recognizes and mourns the sin that has invaded His creation and led to so many horrible events, painful days and that very human feeling of defeat. In some ways, God’s response has been only to look me in the eye and repeat, ‘Yes this is terrible. And Yes I am here.’
When did God promise I would have everything I thought I deserved?
When did He promise me fulfillment of the ever changing definition of happiness?
Instead, Jesus says “I’ve told you all this so that trusting me, you will be unshakable and assured, deeply at peace. In this godless world you will continue to experience difficulties. But take heart! I’ve conquered the world.” John 16:33 MSG
Throughout history, perhaps societies have recognized that we need to be saved even if we have convoluted ideas about what from and what for. Maybe we’ve launched wars and campaigns for fruitless winnings to distract or alter the fact that we are lost from our Creator, Father, Healer, Counselor and Friend. Alone, we have nothing to offer Him, no way to close the gap between our eventual death and His eternal life.
Instead, He reassures me daily that He has overcome the world – He’s faced off against evil, thwarted enemy attacks, stormed the strongholds, came back from the dead and WON. He then shares that victory freely! Imagine a Cross centered generation who threw off the trolling, self-serving survival mode of a lost population and instead declares: We are saved, we are victorious, we are free!
God is slowly revealing to me the implications of living a life from Victory. He has called me to abandon my seat and prepare to rush the field with joy when that mysterious timer runs out. He’s called me to bring as many friends as possible onto that winning field because we all have been given the opportunity to do a victory dance with our Savior. He is coming back to vanquish the enemy, reclaim His world and to rebuild it with us undeserving and eternally free and grateful winners. Despite the anxiety, the fear and the pain that attempts to tear me down when I look around at this broken world, through Him I can fight from a place of victory, give from a place of fulfillment, and live with presence.
He promises that I don’t have to manufacture an identity or chase illusions of a good future or try to save the world on my own strength. Everything is His. It was lost, and then won on the cross and He is coming again for the claim. So where do I want to be found when the timer hits zero? At the concession stand eating my feelings and avoiding the reality around me? Hiding under the bleachers in fear? Stomping my feet, red faced and swearing about those horribly cheap shots? What does it mean to live with the complete, full understanding that through Christ, we’ve already won?
Xo Hannah
(It is strange that I haven’t yet left on this challenging year-long trip, that I’m not done with fundraising, and that I have an overwhelming amount of work to do before the real work begins, but I created a blog with THIS title).
For the original article, see this link.
Stein, Joel. “How Trolls Are Ruining the Internet.” Time. Time Magazine, 18 Aug. 2016. Web. 19 Sept. 2016.
