Most of the older brothers will remember the late 50’s and early 60’s, during the Cold War, we were all warned to prepare for a Soviet nuclear barrage. Americans were stocking their basement shelves with food supplies, building bomb shelters, and planning their evacuation routes. In my elementary world, we were doing “duck and cover” drills in the hallways at school and imagining how we would fight the giant spiders and gargantuan reptiles that Hollywood had convinced us would be spawned from the atomic radiation. Consider this civil defense radio spot from 1962:
If you are caught in the open, and there is a brilliant nuclear flash in the distance, take cover immediately. Even miles away, you may be exposed in seconds to a searing heatwave from the explosion, followed by a blast wave and flying debris. Get into the nearest building immediately or into a ditch or culvert, beneath a parked car, behind a tree or a wall, anything solid that will give you some measure of protection. Curl up into a ball and cover your head with your arms.
Hand Wringing and Panic
My dad grew up along the Rio Grande River in El Paso, Texas. Most of our family’s preparation for a nuclear holocaust consisted of stocking the shelves in our basement with Mexican food. (My dad wanted his family to go out eating like Texans.) For my part, I spent many hours in our backyard digging foxholes to dive into in case I could not make it to the basement—or I wasn’t in the mood for Mexican food.
Though the days of immediate nuclear war now seem like an age long past, in many ways, the situations we face nationally and globally seem worse than ever. Not to be an alarmist, but one might conclude that the world is not getting better—and maybe getting worse. As I consider the news this week and anticipate what it will be next week, I find myself wanting to do “duck and cover” drills all over again.
The fractured cultural conditions we are presently experiencing are like accelerants on a brushfire for those already struggling with the loss of hope. Despondency and rebellion rule the day and dread stalks the night. Families and fortunes have been dashed upon the rocks and shoals of economic shutdowns, lawlessness, and deception.
More and more people withdraw and isolate in fear, confident only of their plight, and resigned to their fate. It is as if they had been hit by a “blast wave and flying debris.” Men will often respond to such conditions by checking out mentally and spiritually—in effect, curling up in a ball, arms over their heads, and crawling into a ditch.
Learning Through Adversity
In times of adversity and despair, men tend to isolate themselves, turning more and more inward, obsessing over past failures and future fears—embracing hopelessness, and even despairing of life itself. Much of this self-focus comes from men’s tendency to look at difficulties, conflicts, or personal problems as something to be fixed. The presumption is, “There is something wrong with me, or else I would have succeeded and would not feel this way; I need fixing.”
With this viewpoint, an anguished soul is no more than a leaky faucet or a cracked foundation in need of repair. Despair breaches the mind like an explosive shock wave when we conclude that our circumstances or problems are insurmountable. Under such circumstances, desperate men will often try to numb the pain of failure and self-doubt in various ways. Pharmaceuticals, legal or illegal; mystical, meditative methods; psychological bromides; and, of course, placing blame on others are among a host of techniques used to deal with the mental discord of the hope-deprived soul. Sadly, all of these methodologies only offer the prospect of getting through the problem, rather than learning and growing from them.
The Withered Hand
While contending with the religious leaders in Jerusalem, Jesus saw a man with a withered right hand. The hand could not do what a hand was supposed to do; it was lifeless, apparently due to an injury. There was no surgical procedure and no rehabilitation for the man’s atrophied hand. It could not be fixed. Jesus did not offer this man a new methodology for living a happy and prosperous life, a prescriptive list of do’s and don’ts; no, quite the opposite. Jesus commanded the man to “Rise up, and stand forth in the midst, and stretch forth thine hand” (Matthew 12:9-15; Mark 3:3-6; Luke 6:1-11). The man reached out his withered hand, and every joint, muscle, tendon, and nerve responded to the Lord’s command. The hand was renewed.
The Man’s Hand Needed Life, Not Therapy
Christ heals the withered soul just as He healed the withered hand—by His presence and the power of His Word. His strength is made perfect in your weakness, and His grace is all-sufficient for any need, any circumstance, and any danger (2 Corinthians 12:9). The thoughts He thinks toward you are “thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end” (Jeremiah 29:11). Jesus does not fix you—He transforms you—teaching you to put on “the new man, which is renewed in knowledge after the image of him that created him” (Colossians 3:10). But to do that, you have to standup, come out of your bomb shelter, and open your withered soul to the promises of the Lord’s commands.
It is time. No more duck and cover; get up out of the ditch; stand up, reach out with your withered soul for the power, the healing, and the understanding that only Jesus Christ can give to you.
Harper sends