Don't Worry

My friend Josh Trevino has a very perceptive piece about Putin using nukes in Ukraine. Josh thinks Putin will use them. I think Josh is probably right for the reason he states.

We have, for a very long time, embraced a doctrine of reciprocal nuclear force. If Russia uses nukes, we use nukes. It worked as a very simple deterrence. Quoting Josh,

They no longer hold, and here is the very dangerous thing the Biden Administration has done. You can read about it in the 25 September 2022 Financial Times, but this is the key passage:

“[W]estern officials said that a nuclear strike against Ukraine would be unlikely to spark a retaliation in kind but would instead trigger conventional military responses from western states to punish Russia.”

It is a passage so astonishing that I re-read it multiple times, and within the next twenty-four hours made several phone calls to confirm. Here is what was, in aggregate, communicated to me: the passage is broadly accurate. As explained, the Biden Administration really has told the Russians that, for the first time ever, Russian nuclear-weapons use in Europe will not guarantee an American nuclear response. Instead of a nuclear attack in return, the Administration has persuaded itself that “conventional military responses” will be sufficiently deterring. Supposedly — and you ought to consider this very much unconfirmed and uncorroborated — those responses will include NATO attacks on Russian launch sites, plus a NATO-enforced no-fly zone over Ukraine. The latter is functionally indistinguishable from direct NATO entry into the war on the Ukrainian side, and there should be no illusion about it.

So Biden has given away the game — there’ll be no nuclear deterrence to deter Russia from using nukes. Instead, we’ll enter World War III with conventional weapons. Putin has no incentive now to restrain himself.

It’s all starting to sound like those bowls are being poured out from Revelation 16. We’ve got the sores; we’ve got the land turned dark on power shortages; we’ve got the plague; we’ve got the rivers drying up, including the Tigris and Euphrates — stand by for the earthquake that may be a nuclear blast.

Of course, you cannot read present times into Revelation directly. But a lot of people are or are going to. A pastor friend of mine is convinced beyond all get out that the rainbow flag is this generation’s mark of the beast. He reads Rev 16:2 as a literal prophecy fulfilled. “The first angel went and poured out his bowl on the land, and ugly, festering sores broke out on the people who had the mark of the beast and worshiped its image.”

I think you have to be very careful reading prophetic scripture literally. I know a lot of people are going to.

Whether you do or you do not, I want you to understand something else. Worry is a sin.

I said on the radio the other day that many people are developing anxiety. Our screens are anxiety producers. The constant stream of news produces anxiety. I said on the radio that you need to calm down, unplug, and focus on those things you can control.

You cannot control what Vladimir Putin does. You cannot control our President. You can exercise control over a small sphere of dominion that exists slightly beyond your front stoop. Work on that. I don’t think God meant for us to care about and certainly not fret about far-off things on the far side of the world that we can’t control.

God’s got this. He has the whole world in his hands. The petal of a flower does not fall off without God’s will and foreknowledge. God is on the throne.

We are headed into uncharted economic, social, cultural, and geopolitical troubles. Most people alive do not have any experience on which to draw or from which to take comfort.

At times like these, your faith is going to matter way more. Understand me here. A lady sent me an angry note on Instagram after hearing me on the radio. She wrote:

I can't believe I just heard what I did. Your comment about reduce anxiety about the world by not doing anything. Let happen what's going to happen ...so you believe teaching our kids to not take action when things go awry is the right thing to do? I whole heartedly disagree. I am teaching my daughter to stand up for what she believes to be wrong and create change.

That’s not actually what I said. I replied to her:

Actually what I said was discern what you can and cannot change and don’t get mad or worry about the stuff outside your control. God’s got that stuff.

God’s got it all mapped out. Learn to discern what you can change. Most of that is right around you, probably within twenty miles of you. But there is an entire globe out there with billions of people. You cannot change them or their leaders or their operations. God can. So pray. Trust God. Stop worrying.

Focus on loving your neighbor. God’s got the rest of this. Sometimes it won’t feel like it, but I promise you — God’s got this, so stop worrying.