Continuing from Part 1 after the 2024 election: Why Would God Let This Happen?

Some readers may ask why I didn’t publish Parts 2, 3, & 4 sooner, like last month when folks were aching for guidance and direction after the election.

To them, I say: Because I wasn’t the teacher you needed in those moments. When the student is ready, the teacher appears.

Who was the teacher you needed last month?

They showed up.

How well did you listen? What did you learn last month? I’d love to hear about it.

I know who I turn to for guidance when I feel lost. Now that I’ve spent some time listening and reflecting deeply on my own life lessons, I feel equipped to offer some possible answers for your consideration:

Part 2: What is going to happen?

Who the hell knows?

Take a deep breath. Uncertainty is the most liberating answer we can have right now.

Where there is uncertainty, there is opportunity to create a future you want.

You’ve got one group of folks swearing eggs will be $0.99 next month; one group swearing the stock market will immediately crash, while another group swears it will soar; some swearing housing will become affordable, while others expect 12% mortgage interest rates and unemployed mobs of good-hearted Americans finally putting billionaires’ heads in guillotines.

Some people are certain the U.S. will invade Mexico, Greenland, Nova Scotia, and Canada; while others are certain the U.S. will be attacked. Some are certain mass deportations, concentration camps, and the suspension of the U.S. Constitution will occur. Others are equally certain that the people making such promises are too incompetent to achieve that actual reality.

Some are certain a South African White Supremacist billionaire who is Constitutionally ineligible to become President is about to become President.

Some are certain bird flu will mutate to covid levels of disruption and we’ll all die before any of that matters.

Some are betting all their money on Bitcoin, while others are fleeing the U.S. and immigrating to countries where they feel/are safer.

Nobody. Freaking. Knows.

So take that deep breath that you skipped earlier, when I told you to breathe the first time.

The people who are least likely to survive whatever is coming next are the ones 100% confident they “know” what the future holds.

Corinthians 1:25: For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.

27 But God chose the foolish things of the world to confound the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to confound the strong. 28 God chose the lowly things of this world and the despised things—and the things that are not—to nullify the things that are, 29 so that no one may boast before him.

Take all the time you need with this.

If you haven’t yet watched all five seasons of Star Trek: Discovery, now is the time, dear reader. It helped me digest this moment with all the sweet efficacy of a Metamucil gummy.

If you’re wrestling with “What is going to happen?”, start by taking stock of what is already happening. Start closer to your epicenter of reality:

Are you paying enough attention to your life? Your children, spouse, and pets?

Are you drinking enough water each day? Spending time listening to trees share their wisdom with you? Appreciating sunsets?

Are you content with your job and feeling respected there?

Is your housing situation stable right now?

These are much clearer predictive indicators of what major event is going to happen next in your life than anything the federal government could do.

If you’re ignoring your spouse, neglecting your couples therapy sessions, or consuming more television than spending time together – a few fights and then a divorce is probably what’s next.

If you’re worried about affordable housing, screwing up an otherwise healthy relationship where you share a housing payment could put you on the street much faster than any federal HUD policy. So, maybe invest more wisely in your close relationships?

Unless it’s an unhealthy or abusive relationship. Then, invest in healing yourself, setting solid boundaries, getting help making a plan to leave, and envisioning the future you deserve. Then make that future your new reality.

If you don’t have many close friendships, start building them. Volunteer at some place with a mission you care about. Meet other helpers. Have them over for dinners. Play board games. Show up for your community. Let your community show up for you. If you do this, having all the benefits of a healthy, supportive community network is what’s next for you.

If you’re planning your garden now and you tend it regularly for the next 9 months, a bountiful harvest is probably what’s next.

If you apply for jobs you feel purposeful and excited about, a healthy career change is probably what’s next.

We cannot accurately predict huge-scale outcomes of unknown, intersectional, multifaceted social systems variables.

But those systems do not affect your life nearly as much as the local school board meetings you didn’t attend.

The federal government does not affect you nearly as much as the wellbeing of your transgender neighbor who just lost their job as a trucker. They had been putting milk on your grocery store shelf, but thanks to state laws, they cannot legally use the bathroom in half their workplace sites anymore. These and local laws are ones you have more direct influence over. If you stand up for your transgender neighbor’s rights, then having your own rights protected locally is probably what’s next.

If you don’t speak up and protect their rights now, a loss of your own rights is probably what’s next.

The same is true for your immigrant neighbor. If you invest in loving and caring for them, a life with Jesus is what’s next. If you call for their mass deportations and make life hard for them, rejection and suffering is what’s next for you (Matthew 25).

A seed can only become its own kind of fruit. You reap what you sow. Reaping what you sow is what happens next. This is not philosophy; it’s physics.

This fact might explain why so many folks are afraid right now. Some are well aware of what seeds have been sown; are well aware of whose exploited labor has been watering those seeds for centuries now; are well aware of how little harvest there will be for the countless many of us who hunger for Justice.

The good and bad news is simply this:

What’s going to happen next depends 90% on your personal priorities, and 100% on how you respond to that which you can neither control nor predict.

Within that window of possibilities, connecting with one another generates the power to lift us out of our pain and deliver us into a future we yearn for — rather than helplessly, passively falling into a future we’re afraid of.

But you’ve gotta be clear: What do you want? What’s worth living for?

Until you know what kind of reality you want next, and until you get clear about measuring the distance between that future and the present moment you have co-created in this historical societal moment, asking yourself, “What’s next?” is just a distraction from the only question that’s relevant:

What’s now?