Not long ago, former President Trump was playing golf when a shooter tried to kill him. A Secret Service agent spotted the would-be assassin and fired at him, saving Trump’s life. This was the second foiled assassination attempt in the last three months.
It is important that we pause and consider the outbreak of evil in our country. Darkness has never slept, but spiritual powers and principalities seem to be especially roused in our time. In the last five years, we have seen lockdowns damage societal health, riots destroy numerous cities, gender ideology ravage the bodies of children, and social media amplify the mental health struggles of youths. And now multiple assassination attempts play out against a former president.
Some downplay this evil. They embrace what we could call a “perverted civility,” acting as if wickedness is a glancing thing. It is not. This rising wave of unrighteousness should wake the church up.
But we must take care here. We cannot be reactionaries, launching like unaimed warheads into the night sky. This is what Satan wants us to do, after all. Satan wants us Christians to live godless lives. He tries to lure us into alarmist extremism and functional self-sufficiency. But this cannot be the mindset of Christ’s church. God is in control, not us.
In Colossians 1:23, Paul encourages the church to persevere in the faith and be “stable and steadfast.” We do not need to be spiritual superstars, it turns out. We need to be stable people, staying on the rails by God’s grace, and steadfast people, persevering in faithfulness. Paul adds that in staying steady, we must not be “shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard.” Christ is indeed our hope. We care about our community, our nation, and our world, and in these realms, we should do all the good we can in the time that we have. But our hope is not worldly. Our hope is in Jesus.
As we grieve the recent assassination attempt on a former president’s life, we must hear this sound biblical counsel afresh. Jesus, we remember, is not dead. Jesus is alive. Jesus will make the earth right. Jesus is saving sinners and overcoming evil. And Jesus frees us to be stable and steadfast, even in times like these.