When the electricity goes out, the first thing you notice is the silence. The refrigerator quits humming. The furnace stops pushing warm air through the vents. The little green lights on the kitchen appliances disappear and suddenly the house feels older than it did a moment ago. In the Ozarks, where ice can close a road, that silence gets your attention.
Lately, entire nations seem to be listening for it. The Pentagon is working on a plan to help military installations operate for as long as ninety days without outside support. Britain’s government has urged families to keep three days of food and water. Other European countries have given similar advice. The concerns are familiar: cyberattacks, war and fragile systems that deliver necessities to our doors.
These precautions address possibilities and ordinary people wonder what their own families should do. So many of us buy a few extra groceries. We look at batteries and generators. We wonder whether there is enough water in the house, enough medicine in the cabinet, enough propane to get through a cold week. A husband thinks about his wife. A mother thinks about sleeping children. Love makes us attentive.
Then something subtle can happen. The preparations meant to quiet our fears begin to feed them. Every article exposes another weakness. Every purchase reveals another uncertainty. We add to the pantry, check the headlines before bed and lie awake imagining a morning that has yet to come. There is wisdom in preparing for trouble. There is misery in rehearsing it every night.
Jesus once spoke to people surrounded by uncertainty, although the danger he addressed reached beyond failing kingdoms and the hazards of ordinary life. In John 10, he called himself the Good Shepherd. His words reach beyond the question of how long our supplies might last.
He knew his sheep before they knew him. When he confronted those who rejected his words, he said, “Ye believe not, because ye are not of my sheep” (John 10:26). Scripture reveals God’s eternal purpose. The Father gave a people to the Son, and the Son came to redeem them. Their salvation began in grace…long before they feared tomorrow.
Think about that when the news turns dark and markets panic. A single storm can expose how dependent we are on wires running along a county road. Yet the Lord has never awakened to discover that events have escaped his control. A Christian can make practical plans with a quiet heart because the future of his soul rests in stronger hands than his own.
Joseph stored grain against the famine coming upon Egypt. Proverbs praises the prudent man who sees danger and takes shelter. Buying food your family will eat, storing drinking water and learning how to keep a house warm are ordinary acts of care. God has entrusted people to our care.
But there is a question worth asking while we stand before the shelves we have filled: What exactly are we asking these supplies to save us from?
They may carry us through a winter storm or provide a meal when stores are closed. They cannot grant one additional breath beyond the days God has appointed. Eventually every house grows quiet for the last time.
Our greatest danger has always reached deeper than an empty cupboard, “I am the good shepherd: the good shepherd giveth his life for the sheep” (John 10:11).
At the cross, Jesus Christ accomplished what our foresight and possessions could never accomplish. We have sinned against a holy God. We cannot purchase forgiveness, build a shelter against judgment, or gather enough good works to remove our guilt. The Son of God took the place of sinners, bore the punishment they deserved and rose victorious from the grave. He did not merely offer a possibility of rescue. He accomplished redemption for his people.
He welcomes sinners to himself. You need not search the secrets of God’s eternal counsel to discover whether you may come. You need to see your sin and the Savior who receives those who turn to him. Jesus said, “whoever comes to me I will never cast out.” (John 6:37).
Perhaps you have spent more time this week considering how to survive a crisis than considering whether you are ready to meet God. Hear the kindness in that invitation. Come to Christ in repentance and faith. He receives sinners with empty hands.
Those who belong to him have work to do while the world trembles. “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me” (John 10:27). The Shepherd still calls people through the truth of his Word. A neighbor who seems uninterested today may yet hear the gospel and believe. We cannot see whom he will call. We can speak of him faithfully.
And we can make room for our neighbors in our preparations. Picture a fourth night without power. An elderly woman down the road is cold. A church member needs help keeping medicine refrigerated. The extra food in your cupboard becomes a hot supper. Your backup power keeps a necessary device running. Someone who has never entered a church sits at your kitchen table and discovers that Christians have been thinking about more than themselves. We must care wisely for our households. Still, a locked pantry can become a poor picture of the gospel if we have forgotten the hungry people beyond our door. Preparing to serve is a beautiful way of preparing to suffer.
Then comes Christ’s promise about the future: “And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand” (John 10:28).
He did not promise his sheep a life without illness, war, hunger or grief. Christians have endured all of them. Some have died with very little to their names. Yet the Shepherd who purchased them will keep them. Their faith may grow faint, like a wick barely glowing in a dark room. His grip will never weaken and He will bring his own safely home.
So it’s necessary to store water and buy extra groceries. By all means, learn where the flashlights are. Check on the widow down the road. Refuse the people who turn every warning into a prediction and every fear into a sale.
Then close the shopping app and open your Bible. Pray with your family. Gather with the church. Speak of Christ to someone who needs him.
One day the batteries will be spent, the shelves will be bare, and every earthly precaution will have reached its limit. On that day, the Christian’s confidence will be exactly where it has always belonged: in the pierced hands of the Good Shepherd.
The world is preparing for everything that might fail. We belong to the One who never will.
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