When the World Shakes, What Are You Standing On?

“The Lord is a stronghold for the oppressed, a stronghold in times of trouble. And those who know Your name put their trust in You. For You, O Lord, have not forsaken those who seek You.” Psalm 9:910 (ESV)

Open your phone or turn on the news this morning and you won’t make it past the first few headlines without feeling it — that low, persistent hum of unease that has quietly become the background noise of daily life.

If you’re a follower of Jesus right now, that unease has a particular edge to it. Because the challenges pressing in on the Church today aren’t coming only from the outside. A good number of them are coming from inside the Church.

In the US, we live in a country where the name of Jesus is spoken constantly — and yet biblical literacy may be at an all-time low. While more people identify as spiritual than ever before, fewer seem willing to submit their lives to the actual cost of following Christ.

In many cases, we see a Church that has often traded the hard, narrow road for something wider, softer, and far more agreeable to the culture sitting in the seats. As Paul cautioned, “For the time is coming when people will [have] itching ears [and] accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths.” (Timothy 4:3-4)

And we should be honest about that. Not to be harsh. But because the truth, however uncomfortable, is always an act of love.

Today’s Christ follower faces a unique pressure — not necessarily the pressure of outright persecution occurring in some places of the world, but something arguably more dangerous: the slow, steady pull toward a faith that is entirely on our own terms.

The kind of faith Jesus warned against that affirms everything, confronts nothing, and asks very little. (Matthew 16:24) One that has quietly swapped the transforming grace of the gospel for a kind of spiritual self-improvement program dressed in religious language.

This brand of faith confuses comfort with blessing. It confuses silence with peace. Perhaps worse, it has confused cultural acceptance with faithfulness, directly contracting God’s instructions for us (Leviticus 20:26)

Jesus never promised any of these things. What He promised was truth that sets us free (John 8:31-32). And truth, by its very nature, first has to disturb us, maybe even unsettle us, before it can do that work.

Here’s what this moment is calling for, if we’re willing to hear it: not louder culture war, not better political strategy, not a more polished Sunday morning experience. This moment calls for repentance.

For the kind of quiet honesty that happens when a believer gets alone with God and stops performing — stops performing for their church, their social media feed, their small group, and even themselves — and simply asks, Lord, where have I drifted?

We’re in the season of Lent, that holy, often undervalued stretch of the Christian calendar that invites us to do something genuinely countercultural: sit with our own poverty of spirit and let it drive us back to God.

Not to a program or a political movement that waves a Bible it rarely reads. Not to a version of faith carefully curated to offend no one. Back to God Himself.

The good news — and it’s gloriously good news — is that God has never moved. He’s not surprised by where the Church finds itself in 2026. He’s not wringing His hands over declining church attendance in some areas, or the surveys revealing how little Christians differ from their neighbors in the way they actually live.

God is still the Ancient of Days. Still enthroned. Still speaking through His Word to anyone willing to sit still long enough to listen.

The invitation today is not to feel better about where things are. It’s to go deeper than where things are. To let the shakiness of this cultural moment do what God has always used hard seasons to do — loosen our grip on the things we were never meant to hold onto, and return us, with open hands, to Him.

The world may keep shifting beneath our feet. But that’s no reason for despair. According to Scripture, it’s a reason to lift our heads — because, in the words of our Lord and Savior, “Now when these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28).

This week, let’s take a moment together and reflect: Where has our faith started conforming to the culture around us rather than to Christ? What would it look like to close that gap — not in performance, but in genuine surrender?

Stand on the Rock. Not because the ground around you has steadied. But because He is greater than the shaking — and He always has been.

Heavenly Father,

Forgive us when we settle for a version of faith that costs us nothing.

Strip away whatever we’ve have added to the gospel that was never part of it, and whatever we’ve subtracted that should have stayed.

Teach us what it means to follow You in this moment, in this life You have given us.

We are Yours.

In Christ Jesus,

Amen

May God continuously lead your path

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