Spiritual Prepping

Survivalists, aka “preppers,” are people who prepare themselves in various ways in case of a supply chain interruption, natural disaster, or the breakdown of the current economic and social order.

Recently a survivalist whose YouTube channel is called “City Prepping” waxed philosophical:

It’s all about building foundations for your future self and your future life, he says. His parting line:

Remember: your future depends on what you do today.

That’s sage advice, not only in preparing for future natural disasters, but in preparing for spiritual disasters as well.

Building on rock

Two thousand years ago, Jesus Christ also talked about the importance of building on a sound foundation:

Why do you call me “Lord, Lord,” and do not do what I tell you? I will show you what someone is like who comes to me, hears my words, and acts on them. That one is like a man building a house who dug deeply and laid the foundation on rock; when a flood arose, the river burst against that house but could not shake it because it had been founded upon the rock. But the one who hears and does not act is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the river burst against it, it quickly collapsed, and great was the ruin of that house. (Luke 6:46–49; see also Matthew 7:24–27)

Jesus is not talking about building a literal house on literal bedrock. He is using the contrast in outcomes between building a house on a sound foundation and building a house that has no foundation under it to illustrate a spiritual point.

Just as people living on this changeable and uncertain earth suffer natural and human-made crises and disasters, so we also suffer spiritual crises and disasters along the path of our spiritual journey. These spiritual crises take place within our mind and heart, though they may be triggered by natural-world events such as the loss of a relationship or a career. These inner crises shake us to our foundation.

And what if we have only a weak foundation, or no foundation at all? These spiritual storms can plunge us into darkness, despair, and psychological destruction.

Hence the importance of building on rock, not on dirt or sand.

And as Jesus says, doing this requires us to dig deep, and put out real effort.

Avoiding the hard work

That’s perhaps the main reason many people don’t build on rock, but just throw up the house of their belief system based on the shifting sands of popular opinions and current ideological fads. It’s so much easier to go with the flow and uncritically believe what everyone else believes.

After all, things are working out okay, aren’t they? Why do all that mental work when everything’s fine? If there are any problems, I’ll deal with them when they happen, they say to themselves.

And so, millions of people move thoughtlessly forward in life, following the short-sighted path, and taking their future for granted.

Unfortunately, as soon as these people hit any real struggles and crises in life—as they will sooner or later—their whole structure of beliefs and ideas quickly collapses. They are swept away in the emotional floodwaters along with the broken shards of the mental house they had been living in. They do not have access to any spiritual branches to grasp and pull themselves out of the water.

Digging deep

Building sound mental and emotional foundations requires hard work. It involves digging deeply, past the unstable dirt and sand of popular opinion and currently trending ideologies. It requires analyzing the world, both material and spiritual, based on facts, rationality, and sound understanding. For Christians, it also involves reading the Bible for ourselves, paying close attention to its exact words, and thinking deeply about what it says, free from the conflicting human doctrines and theories of the popular preachers.

In digging deep, we must sift through the competing theologies and philosophies of life, subject them to the rigorous testing of the real-world results they lead to, and settle on a belief system only when we’ve struck the bedrock of a sound system that not only works in practice, but stands the test of time and challenge. What “everyone” thinks doesn’t matter. What matters is what’s true.

Today, there is a virtual flood of competing beliefs and ideologies saturating the Internet and the airwaves. Popular personalities tout this or that spiritual or political belief system, assuring you that it will transform your life and give you happiness, wealth, power, and so on. The common denominator in these beliefs and ideologies is puffing up your self and your ego and making you think that if you join this crowd, you’ll be one of the powerful and enlightened ones who is in on the secret.

Unfortunately, most people have to give one or two or a dozen of these popular fads a try, and learn the hard way that the results are never as promised. This is all part of our learning process. When all the promises of personal wealth, power, and success have failed, that’s when some people are finally ready to start the process of digging deep and building on a solid foundation.

The rock

What is this “rock” that we are to dig down until we find it, and then build on it?

Quite simply, it is the basic truth of reality. It is the true spiritual ideas on which we can build the house of our thinking, and trust that it will weather even the worst spiritual storms and crises.

Here are a few of these basic truths:

• God is real, and there is one God.
• Jesus Christ is that one God who has come to us personally.
• Bad actions lead to bad consequences.
• Good actions lead to good consequences.
• Believing in God and living by God’s commandments will lift us up to heaven and happiness.
• The life and character we build here on earth will continue to eternity in the afterlife.

Think about it.

If there’s no God at all, or if there are multiple competing gods, how can there be any stable foundation for a moral and ethical life? If the universe is just a random place that brought about our current human civilization by pure chance, what can we measure anything by? Why should we follow any morals at all? Why not just grab everything we can while we can, because tomorrow we’ll be dead and gone?

This is exactly what many people who have no spiritual and moral foundation do. They seek pleasure, wealth, and power for themselves because these are the things that seem real, and that make life feel good. But ultimately, the lives of these people end up empty and broken. Pleasure, wealth, and power fade. And even if they don’t, the enjoyment of them fades over time. People who build on these shifting sands of material-world desirables seldom end their lives happy and fulfilled.

Since there is a God, and only one God, this means there is a definite moral and ethical code for us to live by—one that’s not just arbitrarily decreed by human beings, but that has been given to us by God for our own happiness and well-being. When we avoid doing what God says is wrong, and do what God says is right, we are building our life on a solid foundation because these things come from the God who created us and the entire universe around us.

Christians also have the great blessing of being able to build a personal relationship with God, who has come to us personally as Jesus Christ. This doesn’t mean that non-Christians can’t be saved. But it does mean that Christians have a strong shoulder to lean on when facing the deeper struggles and crises of life.

And finally, knowing that the life and character we build for ourselves here on earth will continue to eternity in the spiritual world gives us an incentive to do the hard work. The results of our labors will not all come crashing down after we die and become meaningless. They will follow us into the afterlife, where we can continue to build our house of happiness to live in forever, in community with all our friends and loved ones.

Your future depends on what you do today

As the City Prepper says, your future depends on what you do today. You can take the easy route of slapping together a weak structure of belief based on all the popular fads and ideologies. Or you can dig deep, seek understanding, and build on the solid rock of genuine spiritual truth.

Your future is in your own hands.

For further reading:

• Spiritual Tornadoes
• Imamu Baraka: Compassion + Knowledge = Effective action
• Are Deaths from Natural Disasters an Unavoidable Side Effect of God’s Creation?
• If God is Love, Why all the Pain and Suffering?
• Anyone Can Choose to Do Good