Searching for a Christian Response to Prepping
(Included in this article are two chapters from the author’s book, Searching for a Christian Response to Prepping. The intent here is to encourage and stimulate believers to prayerfully assess their attitude toward and response to taking measures now that will hopefully help them navigate more successfully the challenges lying ahead.)
In one of Aesop’s Fables, The Boy who Cried Wolf, we read a tale of a youngster who repeatedly fooled his neighbors into thinking a wolf was attacking the town’s sheep. As you recall, when the cry for help turned out to be true, the people refused to respond believing it was just another ruse. The term, “to cry wolf,” later became an idiom meaning “a false alarm.”
Today I feel the implorations for sensible prepping are too often treated in a similar manner. We have seemingly lived so long under so many potentially devastating conditions that we have become immune to the warnings and desensitized to the need to take even common sense precautions toward life altering changes to our existence. America has resiliently recovered from every challenge and crisis it has faced whether Civil War or World War or natural disasters. As a people we are fundamentally conditioned to believe we will always bounce back regardless of what comes our way.
This mindset makes it difficult for even Christians to wrap their minds around a scenario that would describe the second coming of Christ. When Jesus comes again, it will be to establish the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven. The transition from this present world system to the kingdom of God means that everything that is not founded in the Lord Jesus Christ will be utterly shaken and brought down. Another way of saying this is that God’s judgment is part and parcel to the establishing of his kingdom on earth as it is in heaven.
Wherever our hearts, our confidence, our trust, our beliefs are invested in the systems of this present world—whether economic, political, financial, educational, governmental, etc.—we will suffer the resounding consequences of God’s judgment on those systems. Extricating ourselves from the systems of this world is a major facet of our necessary preparation for the coming of God’s kingdom on earth.
The two chapters presented here from the book, Searching for a Christian Response to Prepping, are this author’s response to God’s mandate to offer a wake-up call to his people. The book is not a how-to manual for prepping but rather an encouragement to set the project in motion following the behest of the Holy Spirit. The sections included here are intended to pique the interest of the reader and hopefully arouse sufficient concern for this subject. Prepping is a massive topic covering the gamut from stocking up a week’s worth of groceries to full-fledged living off the grid. The degree each person or family pursues this must be a prayerful and personal endeavor.
Final Thoughts
There is an old adage which says, “Peace through strength.” Although The American Security Council Foundation owns the trademark for the phrase today, it is known to have been used by Roman generals centuries ago. It carries the meaning that it is a nation’s—or for that matter an individual’s—readiness, willingness and ability to wage successful warfare that dissuades other nations from treading upon it. Applying this adage to our subject I think it is also correct to say there is “Peace in Prepping.” When we give adequate consideration to the kinds of potentially disrupting circumstances which can touch our lives, and make advance preparations to meet and counter those conditions, we can embrace a peace both prior to and during tumultuous times that the unprepared can only dream about.
Over the course of months in writing this book, all of the warning signs of impending tumultuous times ahead that I have brought attention to have only intensified. The leaders of our nation appear to be almost frenetic in their attempts to bring economic destruction upon us. The constitutionally prescribed separation of powers for our three branches of government continues to devolve into what amounts to a virtual oligarchy. Our two party system is functionally monolithic leaving the citizenry fundamentally unrepresented. Personal freedoms are evaporating at an unprecedented rate all in the name of national security.
Our nation has been involved in meddling covertly and maliciously in the affairs of other sovereign nations on a horrific scale which has often left them politically, morally, and economically gutted. The globalist elite have surreptitiously brokered a two ocean trade plan—the Trans Pacific Partnership and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership—with a goal of establishing the global sovereignty envisioned by New World Order enthusiasts. If this effort is successful it would effectively eviscerate the sovereignty of American citizens and subjugate all national trade policies to the New World Order.
The geo-engineering of our planet perceived principally in chemtrailing and HAARP activities defies all rational thought and conscience. Our weather is being destructively manipulated and our atmosphere, water and soil are being systematically poisoned. Beyond all this lies the specter of an oligarchy of global elitist banksters maneuvering sovereign nations like pieces on a planetary chessboard as they confiscate ever increasing amounts of the world’s wealth into the already overflowing coffers of the wealthy.
It is this author’s opinion that as a nation we are already beyond the pale of rectifying any of these circumstances through normal channels. Every aspect of our government is so thoroughly infused with corruption that anything short of a total inversion would be meaningless.
Participation in the election process at anywhere but possibly the local levels of government is an exercise in abject futility. Our only hope is in taking hold of God for all we’re worth and pressing into him. I would heartily recommend all true believers seriously consider abandoning every vestige of institutionalized religion and connect themselves with small fellowships of persons utterly committed to the transformational life in Christ (Please refer to The Last Church Standing: Becoming the Church Jesus is Coming For by this author for help in understanding and doing this).
Given the dire scenario described above, I encourage all to soberly consider the material offered in this book. Although we cannot deter or even retard the circumstances cascading upon us, we can make many decisions and take actions that will not only allow us to weather coming conditions with more grace but will also position us to help others who are unable to help themselves.
Most of us are going to have to adopt an entirely new mindset with respect to terribly disruptive conditions. Prior to now we have pretty much expected a return to normalcy once a disruption ran its natural course. However, what we are now facing is going to represent a change in life as we have always known it. We are now contemplating not just another temporary catastrophe such as an earthquake or hurricane. Rather, we are at the precipice of lifestyle altering events from which there appears no foreseeable recovery.
If this is true, then we are confronted with the prospect of not just storing up enough food for a few weeks or months but planning how we are going to obtain/raise food from this time forward. Life as we know it could easily be transformed to something akin to the pre-industrialized or earlier times in America.
Those comfortable in their faith with the employment of firearms are going to have to decide where to draw their line in the sand with respect to government confiscation of weapons. We are going to have to relinquish all hope of outside organized governmental assistance from any level and think about how we can once again become self-governing communities of persons committed to mutual respect, support and well-being. It is my hope and prayer that the material presented in this book will in some measure inform, encourage and motivate persons to make decisions and take actions commensurate with the tribulations ahead.
Where Do We Go From Here?
In 1972 Josh McDowell wrote a masterful defense of the Bible and Christianity entitled Evidence That Demands a Verdict. It is my hope that the material presented here will have a similar impact serving to motivate many to seriously examine their faith and be willing to make whatever adjustments necessary that would bring them into an even greater intimacy with Christ. I pray this work has not simply been about storing up some goods for a rainy day but rather has served to incentivized readers to embrace God’s ultimate intention for their lives. Hopefully a lot of the negative baggage regarding prepping has been removed and replaced with a more balanced perspective releasing persons to freely hear the quiet leading of the Holy Spirit unto adopting a meaningful response to both natural and spiritual prepping.
In closing I would simply like to offer some cogent suggestions with respect to our topic. First, given the potential volatility of the subject, may we choose to practice Christian deference and tolerance toward those who hold different persuasions from our own. We can do this by recalling that in these matters we are functioning under principle and not law. We cannot answer questions of prepping simply by finding a precise Bible reference by book, chapter and verse. Prepping is unquestionably a very individualistic concern and for Christians should always be subjected to the very personal leading of the Holy Spirit. It helps to bear in mind that one size seldom fits all and it is very conceivable that the Lord—with respect to prepping—could lead different persons to respond in different ways at different times.
Prepping is never just about saving our own skins. The more we choose to prep in the natural the greater the supply available to others in times of need. Additionally, not only will it allow those who prep to stay out of harm’s way during a rush on food and supplies, but those who prepped will be equipped to help those who were unable to help themselves. Please recall that hoarding is something that only transpires in times of disruption when persons attempt to garner all they can for themselves. Legitimate prepping takes place in times of plenty and literally makes more goods available to others as shelves are restocked overnight.
The more prepared I am to survive whatever disruptions may come, the more efficacious I will be in helping others to either re-achieve normalcy or adjust to some new standard of life as we know it. Surviving societal disruptions—that would no doubt include a significant loss of communications—is going to require leadership on a very local level. Since most people will be thoroughly engaged in fending for themselves just to survive, it will be those who prepped that will be most positioned to offer encouragement and leadership for the recovery efforts.
It has never been my intention in this work to create panic or alarm. Rather, I hope I have served in some measure as a “watchman on the wall.” It is totally sound logic to alert persons to potential needs that they might have opportunity to prepare for the inevitable eventualities—to fend off unwanted and unintentional consequences.
It is human nature to cling to the status quo and mentally insulate oneself from thoughts of disaster. Thoughts such as “things will always be as they have always been” are ubiquitous. The truth is in the history of the world we have never lived in a more precarious time. As already noted, there is any one of a number of natural or man-made scenarios that could bring the world as we have always known it down around our ears. Knowing of these potential disasters and having the opportunity to prepare to navigate them successfully should bring a sense of hope to all open-minded persons of integrity.
Jesus’ condemnations were reserved principally for the religious persons of his day such as the Scribes, Sadducees and Pharisees. When it came to failing to discern the signs of the times, Jesus called them hypocrites—persons pretending to be something they were not. The evidence of all these matters of which I write are profuse. I pray we will choose to address such in all humility.
Benjamin Franklin offered this bit of wisdom relative to our thoughts on prepping: “By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.” Even if one fails to grasp the gravity of the times in which we now live and spurns all thoughts concerning imminent potential societal disruptions, there is still sound wisdom in prepping to some degree simply on the basis of periodic natural disasters, weather phenomenon and power outages.
Prepping, in a very great sense, should really be nothing more than logical pre-thought readiness to sustain and overcome the consequences of unwanted and unintended exigencies of life. As a closing caveat, please keep in mind that prepping—to whatever degree—should not be tailored to a specific time or event. To do so would considerably narrow the breadth and depth of one’s preparations potentially leaving them unprepared in various aspects of their efforts. In prepping we should attempt to ascertain as many potential needs as we can using an across the board analysis and respond accordingly.
Take a lesson from the ants…Learn from their ways and become wise!
Searching for a Christian Response to Prepping can be purchased either from this website or from amazon.com.
