It’s such an unimportant thing, and yet I am struggling with it. It’s not the thing itself, but what it represents.
Let’s talk about cellphones. I hate them. But I also find it exceedingly hard to carry out my mission without one. When I think about something as frivolous as my next cellphone, I would usually stop and assess how I have used one in the previous year. What are the identifiable trends? What really matters? Try to imagine just how little I use a phone as a phone. I get roughly as many spam calls as I do genuine conversations with people I know, and the spam calls have been less than one per day. The primary use I have for a phone is so my wife and I can coordinate stuff we do. It’s just an electronic tether; there’s more texting than voice conversations.
All the other stuff I do with it can be handled better some other way. I’ve taken a lot of pictures with it, but only when I forgot my camera. It’s not a bad camera, but nothing like the really good one I got a year ago. The only difference a phone makes is how quickly I become aware of email, and how I don’t have to physically go to the bank to deposit the few checks I receive. Otherwise, it’s just one more way the advertisers can track me. While I have used it a couple of times to surf the Net, I really hate how it works for that.
How I use a phone won’t justify much of an investment, based on what I’ve done so far.
But there’s one problem with that approach: The world is about to change dramatically. Everything I do is subject to dramatic change, too. Things have already changed with the protests and quarantines; a cellphone is actually more valuable in that environment. But the situation is about to change even more dramatically as the drama ramps up to the election. It’s impossible to estimate just how things will change. There are too many variables to even guess intelligently. As I’ve warned in the past, as a prophetic word, the Lord has warned He’s not going to reveal too much because He’s got some important work to do with folks I don’t even know about. His redemptive work means He is waiting to see what path they take, and it will affect the outcomes of all this crazy chaos.
But there are things we can know. The prophetic messages I’ve gotten include the warning that we are at war, that there are people who hate Jesus and His gospel message, and they are intent on hijacking the government system at all levels. They will succeed in some measure at the federal level, but fail in many states and locales. I have no firm word on the outcome of the voting. Instead, I have a warning that the election will be such a mess that it won’t matter who wins the presidency by official count. The coup attempt will be that serious. We have never seen here in the USA just how insane things can get. None of this would surprise even those who ignore prophecy.
It’s already started. The MSM is hiding the parts they don’t want you to know about; the whole game is manipulation. The Christ-haters know they are in the minority among the the US population, but they control most of the information systems that feed the public awareness. Oddly, because of this, some parts of our daily existence will not change all that much for quite some time. Perception is everything in some parts of the system by which we now live. The economy is hugely dependent on consumer perception, running on the knife-edge of collapse if the public changes their habits. We’ve already seen a partial collapse from the shutdowns, but the underlying system can still feed us.
However, in some cities, that has already begun to change. Truckers are refusing to deliver freight to, or even to drive into, cities where the police don’t control the streets and keep the protests under control. So the economy is becoming more fragile. It’s not that it won’t work, but that it can’t keep using the same assumptions that worked in the past. The people who provide for daily life will have to pay attention and change methods to match the new situation. Most of them can do this, but it will take time for some changes that are necessary.
And the nature of this thing is so very chaotic that we can’t even talk about what’s “on the other side” of this rising tribulation. It’s obvious to a lot of very smart people that the only future we have is in decentralization. The US government must fold. Nobody can predict how that will happen, and I’m pretty sure it’s related to some of the things on which God is waiting to see what key figures choose. In a certain sense, the net result will be the same either way, but a lot of the variables will get our attention on the way from here to there. Those variables will affect a lot of our mission choices.
So on the one hand, the choice of which cellphone I might need is still a frivolous question. On the other hand, it’s one of the few choices I can begin to calculate right now. In the long run, it won’t matter. It’s that period in between now and “on the other side” that I have to consider. There are two things going on at once here: The Radix Fidem community is seeing some very active members now getting too deeply involved in their own missions to intact much online. Some of them will have no time, will have to pull away in order to serve effectively. Yet other new folks will join; I am utterly convinced of that. How can I serve them best?
Keep in mind that the nature of Radix Fidem has become more about the training and preparation for mission than it is about the fellowship. Fellowship is critical for some folks, but for many it’s just a passing need as they begin to engage fellowship on a new level in the real world. This is why I keep saying that I’m not building a private religious empire here. I’m here to get folks ready for operating independently. Those that hang around are part of the “staff and faculty” of Radix Fidem, but most of you are just passing through. I’m happy with that.
Most of you could care less about my cellphone, and rightly so. It won’t affect your life at all, nor should it. It’s just a symbol I use for something far more important: You need to seek peace with God, and it’s my mission to help you find it. I’m expendable, so you can bet a cellphone is even more so. Radix Fidem is a virtual place to learn something that’s been hidden for a long time: the study of how one builds shalom in a wide array of contexts.
We are trying to discern and share what seems common for most people in terms of the struggle, not where they end up. God alone can decide where you are headed.
