Why Our Institutions Are Collapsing—and Why Should Christians Keep Building
Nathan (00:01)
Hello and welcome to Thank You Not Loud. I'm your co-host, Nathan Rittenhouse.
Cameron (00:05)
and I'm your co-host Cameron McAllister.
In this episode, we start with a story about grandpa Rittenhouse planting a tree at the age of 94 that will not come to full fruition until eight years later. And Nathan from this wonderful little story is able to take us through all of the different eras of modernization and bring us to a place where we consider what it means to invest in the future.
and what it means to build lasting institutions. I know we're getting a lot out of that one little story, but stick with us because this will be helpful to you. And also this is a Christmas episode, so it's very festive. Like, share, and subscribe as always. And if you would like to support the work that we do, you can do that by going to www.toltogether.com.
Nathan (00:07)
I'd like to tell you a story about my grandpa's tiny Christmas tree. this all got started and we want to talk about the development of institutions and cultural changes and all sorts of wonderful things that you might want to think about at the end of the year, but it's to start with a, so, balsam fir trees only grow in very specific regions and climates. And there's a little spot on my grandpa's farm where some do grow naturally and he transplants them from time to time and let's them grow into Christmas trees. And last week I was down, we're helping my brother vaccinate and move some cattle.
Cameron (00:18)
Naturally.
Nathan (00:38)
And in between loads, Grandpa showed me by the cattle chute where he had transplanted some of these little trees. So imagine a little, uh, fir tree that's like, eh, 12 inches tall. And he was laughing and he was grinning. He said, what do you think about a 94 year old man planting a Christmas tree? And so then it turned into a family discussion of whether or not we thought grandpa would still be around when that tree came to maturity. And so I was like, ah, maybe seven years. And my dad's like, no, 10 and grandpa's like, maybe eight.
Cameron (00:57)
I'm ⁓
Nathan (01:05)
And then Abe was like, well, grandpa, I hope at 102, you can come out here and harvest this, uh, little, you know, this tree will be ready. And I was like, Hey, it doesn't say how big the tree has to be to be a Christmas tree. know, you could harvest it next year. It'd be fine. Charlie Brown Christmas tree. the, the, and so we were all joking about him getting old and being dead and all sorts of other fun things that he likes to think about. But the idea of like that at 94 years old, he was still planting trees, um, with
Cameron (01:20)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (01:32)
with a little bit of hope for the future that he would see it, but also with a real reality that he probably wouldn't. And it coincided with a number of thoughts that I think we've touched on a bit in the past of who's doing the building and the creating. And I was in the planting, like who is investing in the future and what generations have different mindsets about that. And there was a line in Paul King's North Book where he talked about being the child of the children of the 60s.
Cameron (01:45)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (02:01)
And he said the 60s brought about a culture in which everything was permitted, but nothing was created. And that stuck in my mind. so of course, there are some exceptions to that. But your hippies did basically become Silicon Valley and Whole Foods starters. So there was an entrepreneurial spinoff of that. But by and large, if we look at the generational constructions of massive shifts from
agricultural to the Industrial Revolution, then the post-war economy, now sitting on the cusp of a transition out of that economy into a digital economy. I think from where we're sitting, I can look at, by and large, and of course there are exceptions to all these, but by and large, it feels like the generation or two before me didn't start new institutions. They either maintained, expanded, or worked within ones that the generation before them started.
Cameron (02:57)
Yeah.
Nathan (02:58)
And so it's a, an interesting thing to think about who who's really building and creating right now in our culture. So we're setting art aside. We're talking about kind of small, you can even, you can put small family businesses in there, but institutions in general of like, where are they or who's, who's starting a business that their kids could actually, and even of the small businesses that are started, that's probably going to be like a one generation mom and pop kind of thing, but their kids aren't going to all come back and work for that as it grows and expands.
And then start thinking about churches and denominations and all sorts of other programming and the community things that you see going on around you. Like the probability of somebody in the last 10 years starting something that looked like the Lions Club in your town is low. This is just me anecdotally speaking. So I'm trying to work out a, a differentiation between who were the builders and who were the sustainers. And then as those things that have been sustained crumble,
Cameron (03:28)
Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (03:57)
around us in our culture. It feels very much like a Cameron either you and I our generation ⁓ Hover around that 40 mark are going to have to start building some things or we're going to have to lay the the foundation for the younger the people younger than us to start building things that look like it's putting culture back together and The other parallel that comes in here is that a number of the churches and I've said this before that I've been talking to and just as I travel and think
would say that the demographic that they're missing is like the 50 to 60 year old. That over 65 they're good and under 40 they're great, but they're missing like a generation that just kind of isn't there. That historically I think would have been the ones that had the resources, the relationships, and the capital to start and build new things that would be. And we don't see that so much. And I'm not blaming that generation. I'm just saying they inherited
Cameron (04:32)
Right.
Nathan (04:55)
an institutional and a structure that they could just pop into and hey, there were pensions for these types of jobs and you could plug right in. So why would you start anything new? And a lot of them took things that their parents' generations started and developed and built them out. ⁓ But so much has crumbled and collapsed in the economic world around those things now that or just culturally that they aren't there. And I feel like there was a like when my wife and I started dating in college, we looked around and we're like, okay, who's doing this well that we can model our relationship off of?
Quick look, nobody. Get out of blank. Like literally we got out a blank piece of paper. Like how do we want to design this? Like how do we want to structure that? And it feels to me like we're back. I'm kind of back into that moment as I kind of look into the future of institutions, ⁓ things that would be pillars of society to speak, but even within the church of saying, okay, we're not seeing a whole lot of great stuff coming down. How do we.
Cameron (05:45)
Yeah.
Nathan (05:54)
Off of the history that we have the energy that we have and start to lay to start to put back some of the pieces That we like it's like taking a jingle block out and it starts to fall and you stick your finger in there You're like, well, no actually we want to put that back in I think we're living through that transition of like we wiggled that and saw what was about to happen and Now here we come we want to plug this back in And am I just making this up? Maybe I'm sitting on a weird stump looking at the world or is there Is this jiving with anything you're observing?
observing.
Cameron (06:25)
Well, what's interesting to me, Nathan, is that both you and I had a front row seat to an institution that collapsed that we were a part of.
Nathan (06:33)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (06:34)
And so that's part of the landscape that's going on right now. There has been a lot of institutional collapse and there has been, in our case, this happened as a result of moral failure and deception. And that's not an isolated incident. So there has been a lot of institutional collapse because trust has been lost. So there's that, that's one factor. And I think another
Nathan (06:56)
So there can
be good institutional collapse. Let's not act like every institution is a good one. Some things do need to come down. So that's not what I'm saying.
Cameron (07:00)
Yes.
Sure,
sure. No, and I don't think that's what you're saying. also, but we also see, I think there's a growing recognition. Actually, I'd go so far as to say there's broad recognition from people who are thinking carefully about this right now, Paul Kings North among them, that we've come to a place where some building needs to happen, but not just any building. I mean, we live in a day and age where it's very easy to,
to make something and you have to put something in quotes. I think one of the most prescient phrases, and this is not unique to me at all, that Karl Marx said was, you know, basically under the engines of capitalism, all that is solid melts into air. And then there's the phrase years later that came along, you know, liquid modernity that came from Zygmunt Bauman, who is a Polish philosopher. But basically just to describe how ethereal
everything feels that's built because we're living in the wake of a digital revolution. many things that are built are not brick and mortar. They're very evanescent in that sense, but they're also not built when you and Aaron pulled out that piece of paper. I'm guessing that what you were also thinking is long-term. What can we do?
Nathan (08:10)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (08:27)
to ensure long-term stability in this relationship. So similarly, when we're talking about institutions, what would ensure
Nathan (08:33)
Well, and mainly at that phase of life, healthy
boundaries were also a huge part of that conversation. And we weren't making it up from scratch. We were looking at people that we knew that had been married for 60 years at that point. So, I mean, it's, it's not in a vacuum. It's just a little tiny local vacuum.
Cameron (08:36)
Well, yeah, of course. But when we're thinking about it.
Mm-hmm.
Right. what's, what I mean, long thinking in long term, thinking long term rather than short term is that that requires a bit of a paradigm shift. It can be done. it, but I think more people are recognizing that that's what needs to happen. we think about building, we need to be, we need to be thinking about firm foundations. We need to be thinking about, will this, let's make something that will outlast us and that other people can be a part of. Yeah.
Nathan (09:01)
Well, okay.
Mm-hmm. we're whittling toward this, but I was reading this more liberal Christian publication, but there was an economist in that who said, look, my kids say, we're never going to own a house, so why wouldn't we eat out every evening? Right? And ⁓ so, he's like, they're not using their money wisely because they don't think there's any point in saving it because they wouldn't be able to save money fast enough to, you know,
Cameron (09:19)
I'm sorry, this all sounds very vague in my ears, but you help me out here.
Nathan (09:49)
you know, enjoy the economy in this way. So why not just, you know, why not just enjoy the moment if you're not confident in the future? So this is where I think the paradigm where there will be a splitting and a splintering of those who just want to be entertained till the end here. And you'll be able to do that versus those who say, no, actually we do have a vision of the future that is good enough that it's worth investing in. That's the question. Do you have a vision of the future that is bright enough?
Cameron (09:49)
Mm-hmm, sure.
Nathan (10:18)
that it's worth and I'm not saying investing like putting, mean, maybe you have to use dollars and put capital investment into building the thing, but do you have a vision of the future that is big enough that you're willing to spend time and energy on laying those blocks for whatever is going to come next? That's a, and so in some ways you can have a 94 year old planting a Christmas tree that'll take 10 years is a more optimistic vision of the future. Even of saying, Hey, I'm probably not going to be here just so you know, there's a
Cameron (10:35)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (10:46)
ball some fur planted over by the headgate of that cattle chute, you know, um, somebody else will probably run it with a llama or an accident, who knows, but, maybe he'll live to 102 and get like, doesn't, you don't do it based on the, the, the clarity or the certainty of the outcome just on it's a good thing to do.
Cameron (11:04)
Right.
That's a really important sentence. You don't do it based on the clarity or the certainty of the outcome. You do it because it's a good thing to do. That flies in the face of most of our cultural assumptions today. We want guarantees if we're going to do anything, especially if we're going to invest in something. But it's a good thing to do. I told you when you mentioned this earlier, it reminded me of N.T. Wright when he says, Jesus is coming, plant a tree.
Nathan (11:23)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (11:35)
I think we've for a long time been kind of barreling toward a very pessimistic view of the future. We're just, kind of in a zone of that pronounced pessimism and it's experienced just as a kind of a deep mood. Especially, I mean, it's very pervasive, especially when you talk to younger people. And I think people just, yeah, they want to just survive. It's not about thinking in larger terms about some
future or a future investment is just how do I get through today? How do I get through this week? And so we have to find ways to move past that mindset because that can be a crippling thing. not a complete game changer, but it can be quite crippling because the morale is very low for a lot of people.
Nathan (12:21)
Okay.
Let's play with this idea. See if this helps. are we differentiating between what I'm going to call a closed system? So imagine the world sealed off by its atmosphere and the the the the goodness or the destruction of the future is entirely dependent on what happens within it. So it is a closed world, right? We're we're we're all we've got and this is all we've got. Christmas is a story saying that it is not a closed but an open universe.
Cameron (12:46)
Yeah. Yep. Yep.
Nathan (12:54)
that interaction and intervention from the outside can come in. That is literally the story of Christmas incarnation, God stepping into and coming into in a very unexpected way into the world. And so if you're operating with an open framework, you're going to say, okay, we can look around and say, this is what we've got for now, but this is not necessarily indicative of the trajectory of where things have to go. We do believe that rapid ⁓ cultural change
Cameron (13:13)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (13:22)
is reality. Look at history. also believe that in significant divine intervention. we also, think, reading ⁓ Christian biographies is one of the most profound things that young people could be doing right now, is to say, read the stories of people who are like, all right, Lord, I will go all in on this thing that you're calling me to and just see how the cards fall. Massive change comes from that kind of thing. ⁓ And so that's encouraging. So as a Christian, we're playing with a larger deck of cards.
Cameron (13:31)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Nathan (13:51)
the game when we're saying what does the future look like then I'm not sure that people are like if if you just subtract Christmas out of it if you subtract the incarnation out of it I think people should be more depressed but but I'm not I'm not so so there's a yeah anyway this is a Christmas story I mean we started talking about a little tiny Christmas tree so we got to bring that in there here somewhere
Cameron (14:03)
Mm-hmm.
Well, there's a root... Right.
Yeah.
Well, it's in that marvelous word, Emmanuel, God with us. Yes, it's, we have been invaded from above by the living God to rescue us. There's a really telling moment, Nathan, in the recent, in the Catherine Bigelow movie, House of Dynamite. think this, not mild spoilers here, but say, hey, fair warning. It's not a very uplifting movie for the Christmas season, but it's interesting that we're getting.
We're getting a lot of apocalyptic movies lately. One place to look when you want to just understand, you know, if you want to think about what's troubling us lately is just look at the movies we're making or the shows we're making and look at, you know, you get an idea of where our imagination is going. It's been a while since we've had a doomsday scenario movie like this. Well, nuclear doomsday movie. And so now we have one again, probably to date, one of the more realistic ones in terms of the dialogue and all of the procedures that are displayed in the film.
But there's a scene toward the end. So in the film, a warhead is launched at the U.S. and it's headed directly for Chicago and they can't determine where it came from, which is especially menacing because now they don't know it was this Russia, was this North Korea. And the president is faced with the unenviable decision of whether to do something, which will risk massive escalation.
There's one scene where basically he says, you know, so you're telling me just to surrender. And the, advisor says, okay, if you want to look at it in those terms, sir, this is surrender or suicide. So it's that kind of movie. So he's on, he's on the airplane and he's, they're all waiting on him. Merry Christmas, everybody. This thing is bare. Yeah. This is barreling towards Chicago. It's going to decimate Chicago. And so Chicago was already and having it. Yeah. So Chicago was already lost in the, in the story. The question is what, happens after that? So he's, he's, he's there.
Nathan (15:57)
Merry Christmas, everybody. Spoiler.
And a Happy New Year!
Cameron (16:15)
And he's with his military advisor who's walking him through all the retaliation scenarios and he needs to pick one. And at one point, the military guy who's helping him out with these scenarios crosses himself. does the cross. And the president, played by Idris Elba in the movie, looks at him and says,
God tell you anything? And the man just sort of says, I'm sorry, I'm just praying. But it's an interesting telling moment because he's so desperate and he's trying, I mean, for any answer. it's again, one of those kind of, it's not necessarily a knock against religion, but it kind of shows you where in the popular imagination, you're completely, all hope is lost and every single option has been exhausted.
Maybe when you're totally desperate and all expertise and human ingenuity have failed you, maybe then you turn to God briefly and you just get nothing but crickets and silence. That's a picture of the empty, the closed system, the closed universe that Nathan was talking about. But if you're a Christian, your vision of reality is completely different from that. And so even when things look grim culturally, if you happen to be in a phase in history where it looks a little bad, you can act with
Nathan (17:14)
Mm-hmm.
Cameron (17:32)
cheery, a cheery sense of expectation because Christianity, this is one I have to say this, I have to preach this to myself a lot, Nathan. I am hardwired to be a pessimist. I'm hardwired to be a tragic realist in many ways. But I tell myself, and I say this aloud all the time, stoical resignation is not a Christian virtue. Christianity is not a tragedy. Christianity is a comedy. What distinguishes a comedy from a tragedy is not that it's funny, it's that it has a happy ending. Christianity has a happy ending.
ending. And it is not a closed system where we're left to our own devices and we're on our own. And if some doomsday scenario, whatever it is happens, then we'll perish alone. And the best we can hope for is to die with nobility and dignity. That's not the Christian vision of reality. And I think a lot of people right now, just in a phase, I think this is also behind Nathan, intent, the of the surge and interest in Stoic philosophy and some of, you know, Epictetus and
Marcus Aurelius keeps topping the bestseller list right now. Courses on the Stoics are really, really popular at colleges right now. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of profundity in that thought, but it's not a Christian frame of mind. I think people are drawn to it because we're so surrounded by fear right now or just a sense of just escapism. Those guys were all, hey, let's face our condition.
Nathan (18:33)
Hmm.
Cameron (19:02)
But as Christians, we're here to say, that's not your condition. You're not alone. And there is help from above. Emmanuel is real.
Nathan (19:11)
So
let's work through this a second because there's an unhealthy opposite of this, which is to say, okay, we just have to take over everything. a Doug Wilson kind of Christian nationalism or a Catholic integralism that says, okay, the church just needs to man up and we're gonna retake everything and take over everything. And that is not what I'm talking about. ⁓
So how do we, what's the right balance there of saying, cause you.
Cameron (19:39)
Yeah.
Well, I think Doug Wilson's helpful
here to spell this out because he actually used the phrase, did he use, you told me he used the phrase Presbyterian utopia or something like that, or a reformed utopia. Did he say that? All right. Well, I think we've, so as a person in the reform tradition myself, so I take profound exception to Doug Wilson's emphasis, but I do think it is possible to live out your Christian calling and see some wonderful.
Nathan (19:52)
Mm-hmm. I think so. Yeah. Yeah.
Cameron (20:12)
consequences, some profound healing consequences on a societal level. But that doesn't mean we try to somehow establish the kingdom of God here on earth. I think that means if you're doing, I mean, and you have tremendous impetus also in, know, in Martin Luther who would talk about, you know, if you're a cobbler and you work with shoes, do it to the glory of the Lord. So if you work in Washington, do it to the glory of the Lord. That's a wonderful assumption, but that's worlds apart from saying,
We need to seize power and use it to redemptive ends. That I would counsel against because we can't have heaven on earth. Any utopian vision is profoundly misguided, but trying to, yes, yeah.
Nathan (20:53)
One in one, you're building the
foundation of hope and the other is you're building out of your foundation of hope.
So in one you're trying to put the pieces in play that will realize the future that you want to see. And in the other you're laying the stepping stones for living well in whatever that future looks like. I think there's a difference there.
Cameron (21:14)
Well, and at no point, I mean, again, this is where I would say to somebody like a Doug Wilson or those who are persuaded by him, you're not being reformed enough. We have to take into account the fallen nature of the world. And so you got some depravity issues here. And this is the same, this is the same issue that any kind of utopian vision encounters. So there may be, there are really good intentions. mean, utopian visions tend to say, Hey, we're trying to build a just.
Nathan (21:25)
I was going to say there's some depravity issues at play here.
Cameron (21:42)
an equitable society. All right. That's a laudable goal. But if we're going to do that, we have to take into account where, yeah, but human beings are going to be involved here. And so, you know, this, this is what in secular terms, if you want to make an omelet, you got to, you got to crack some eggs. You'll hear, you'll hear these very ominous phrases. This is why those who are in, who are committed to these kinds of causes often think, Hey, yeah, but we need a
There's a necessary revolution. There's a purge that has to take place. We got to do some cleanup before we can instantiate this new ideal society. And history has run red with blood because of those efforts. we can't, Christians are hopeful, but we're not idealists.
Nathan (22:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's that's so the you're saying that you have a personality that how did you phrase it tends toward? Did you say realistic pessimism? Tragic realism
Cameron (22:41)
Tragic realism. Yeah, tragic realism.
mean, hardwired for that melancholic, yeah. Yep.
Nathan (22:47)
Tell me how this fits in because I'm just trying to do some self psychoanalysis here. So Sunday or so ago we had a Christmas program in a different county right after church we had to hurry over to and ⁓ We were crossing a mountain that I knew the roads would it be I mean is kind of blizzard conditions Temperatures zero degrees and so I said to my kids like hey everybody has their church shoes on but I everybody to grab an extra pair of boots a Thicker coat and some gloves and they're like why and I'm like, well, there's a chance we slide in the ditch and we have to hike off the mountain and
My daughter said to me, dad, you're saying that. Yeah, that's what she said. But she said, you say that the way you said it almost sounded like you hoped it happened. That you hope it'll happen. And I was like, is that how I come across in this? But there's a sense of like, okay, I want to be realistic about the conditions of what. And when we got there, hey, we were on unplowed roads in the middle of nowhere at zero degrees in a 17 year old minivan. Like, you know, it wasn't an
Cameron (23:18)
You pessimist. Just kidding.
Nathan (23:48)
It was within the realm of possible that it would have a good idea to have an extra coat. So it's like, I don't know that that's pessimism. It's just like, this is the world that I see, but here are the steps that I know that I can take at this moment to make if the bad case scenario, it wasn't like it ruined our lives. like, hey, everybody grab a pair of boots on your way out and gloves on your way out the door. What are the, are the, help me.
Cameron (23:57)
No, not at all.
No, here's the
moral of your story, Nathan. You went though. You went. You didn't say, nope, blizzard conditions, everything looks horrible, we'll never make it through the ship in the car. We're not going.
Nathan (24:19)
Right.
Cameron (24:31)
That's more along the lines of pessimism. So yeah, I'll never see the outcome of my efforts here. So why am I gonna put forth all this effort? Nothing's gonna work out in the end anyway. Let's eat, drink, and be merry for tomorrow we die. mean, that's such a powerful phrase and that is the unstated life philosophy of many people right now.
Eat, drink, and marry. Be merry for tomorrow we die, but don't think about that. Let's just not think about it. Yeah.
Nathan (25:03)
So, how do we as Christians start to manufacture
mittens?
Cameron (25:09)
Hmm
Nathan (25:10)
That's
more the vision that I'm seeking, not like, do we take over the House and the Senate?
Cameron (25:14)
Yeah,
yeah, yeah, so what do we, so your grandfather planted that tree.
plant the church, can continue planting the churches, continue. We're people with a mission and we're animated by that mission. We proclaim the evangel, the good news, and the good news is Jesus is Lord. And we continue to do that. And we might need to put hard hats on to do it. We might need to put mittens on to do it. We might need to...
Nathan (25:27)
Cause he had fun doing it.
Cameron (25:51)
reckon with all sorts of new cultural developments and unprecedented new developments that will bring up new ethical challenges. might have to think about, some cost benefit analysis. We might think about risk, all of that. I God's people have been doing this down the ages. mean, think about the absolute wild story of just the church throughout history.
Or the early church, all the challenges that the churches faced throughout the years. This is not something that is unfamiliar or somehow completely new.
Nathan (26:31)
There's a one of my favorite lines from the old the old way that the old Pilgrim's Progress was written is ⁓ You have that episode where he he's going through a valley at night and he has his sword out and he's fighting away trying to get through This difficult spot and then things get so bad that he has to put his sword away and pray and He and he comes he comes out of the he comes out of the valley
Cameron (26:55)
Mmm, yep.
Nathan (27:00)
This is the valley of the shadow of death metaphorically, allegorically speaking. And so he gets up on the rim on the other side as the sun is coming up and he looks back into what he had just come through and he recognizes that though he was terrified in the valley, that it was way worse. Like once the sunlight hit it, what he had come through was way worse than he even experienced as he was going through it. And he sings this little hymn of praise. says, I might have been catched and tangled and cast down.
Cameron (27:02)
Shot of death, yeah. Yeah.
Nathan (27:28)
but because I live, may Jesus wear the crown." And so there's an interesting, I don't know why that line just always resonated with me, I might have been catched and tangled and cast down, but because I live, may Jesus wear the crown. A sense in which our improbable perseverance through difficulty ⁓ is such that Christ receives the glory for the outcome of it.
⁓ Not in that like the shadow the valley of the shadow of death is destroyed but that we persevered through it and Christ was glorified in it and so that's the the type of ⁓ Animating Calling that I think I have within me That I want to communicate as an actual possibility because it has been there in the history of the church to somehow help young people You remember back when there was the ⁓
Cameron (27:54)
Mm-hmm.
Nathan (28:23)
What was the whole thing going on about like safe spaces and the universities and the freedom of speech and what if somebody microaggressions and trigger words and warnings, all that. Do remember the, president of the university of Chicago wrote a, an essay and I think it was in this and I forget who published it, but you can probably find it if you Google around enough. And he said, you have two options. We can either pave the jungle or teach students how to lace up their boots.
Cameron (28:29)
microaggressions and... yep.
yeah.
Nathan (28:52)
And I like that imagery. We can either pave the jungle or we can teach the students how to lace up their boots. And so I think the work of the church, if you're listening to this as a young person right now, also it comes back to boots metaphors, which seem to be featuring prominently in our discussion here. But the lace of the boots of have the warmth of have the thing to travel through the blizzard, ⁓ be able to stash your sword and pray through the valley of the shadow of death in a way that...
Cameron (29:06)
Sure.
Nathan (29:17)
honors God, is thoughtful, it's realistic about like, there's a blizzard or here's this difficulty or these ideas might challenge us. ⁓ That is a vision that I can get excited about throwing my energy into of helping people think about how to do that well. And if there are things like that, that we're called to, then we probably will find that we find a sense of satisfaction in the action independent of our ability to project the future. so plant a little tree. If you like planting a little tree to watch it grow into a big tree.
Cameron (29:27)
We do.
Nathan (29:47)
But that same metric applies wherever you're sitting or wherever you're walking or doing right now in your life. Say, hey, what does it look like for me to invest well in ⁓ the next four years of my life and kind of laying the groundwork for other Christians to have a vision where they can live out actual contagious hope in the world around them.
Cameron (29:47)
Mm-hmm.
It's a good time to have the phrase, Maranatha, before our minds. Just turn that over. God is with you. As you think about your future, our future, what you're gonna do, just know you are not alone. So, Merry Christmas to you. Yes, huzzah. And Merry Christmas to you from TOL. Thanks for listening. And we're looking forward to, hey, we'll see you in the new year. I just had to do it. Had to do it. Everybody, you know.
Nathan (30:17)
Hmm.
Huzzah.
Cameron (30:42)
Yeah, everybody's doing that. had to do it. Anyway, you've been listening to Thinking Out Loud, a podcast where we think out loud about Christian hope and current events.