Douglas Vandergraph

There is a strange sentence that keeps echoing in my heart lately, and the more I sit with it, the truer it becomes. There has never been a worse time in history to be a problem. Not because problems have disappeared, but because they can no longer hide. We live in an age where everything is visible. Everything is shared. Everything is documented. Everything is debated. And for people of faith, that changes something fundamental about how we see the world.

For most of history, brokenness lived in the shadows. Suffering was localized. Injustice was hidden behind geography. Disease went unnamed. Ignorance went unchallenged. People could pretend that what they didn’t see didn’t exist. But now, in this strange and overwhelming age of global connection, nothing stays buried. Pain travels faster than ever. So does truth. So does opportunity.

That can make the world feel heavier. It can make problems feel louder, more constant, more exhausting. But it also means something else that is easy to forget. It means that the light is brighter than it has ever been. The moment you shine light into darkness, it feels like the darkness is growing, but what is really happening is that it is being revealed.

Faith was never meant to exist in a dimly lit world. Faith was designed to operate in full exposure.

The Bible does not portray God as a God who hides from problems. From the opening verses of Genesis, God steps directly into chaos and speaks order. He does not wait for the confusion to resolve itself. He does not sit back and hope things improve. He moves into disorder with clarity and purpose. That pattern is not an exception. It is the story.

When humanity fell, God did not abandon it. When Israel was enslaved, God did not ignore it. When empires oppressed the vulnerable, God raised prophets. When sin fractured the world, God sent His Son. Over and over again, the story of Scripture is not God retreating from brokenness, but God advancing into it.

That is why despair has always been the enemy’s most effective weapon. If you can convince people that nothing can change, they stop moving. If you can convince them that problems are too big, they stop trying. If you can convince them that the world is beyond repair, they stop loving.

But faith is not built on outcomes. Faith is built on obedience.

One of the quiet lies of our time is that because problems are complex, we are exempt from responsibility. We talk endlessly about systems, structures, histories, and forces. And yes, they are real. They matter. They shape outcomes. But Scripture has never allowed us to hide behind complexity. God always brings the question back to the person.

Who will go?

Who will speak?

Who will stand?

Moses had every excuse. He was afraid. He was insecure. He felt unqualified. Gideon hid. Jeremiah protested his youth. Esther feared for her life. Peter doubted himself. Paul carried guilt that could have crushed him. None of them were chosen because they felt ready. They were chosen because they said yes.

Faith is not the absence of fear. Faith is movement in the presence of it.

We live in a moment when problems are no longer distant. They appear in our news feeds, our conversations, our communities, our families. And because of that, many people feel overwhelmed. They grow cynical. They grow numb. They grow tired. They start scrolling past pain instead of stopping in it. They start treating brokenness as background noise.

But the gospel has never been background music.

It is a call.

When Jesus walked the earth, He did not avoid the places that made people uncomfortable. He went to lepers. He went to the rejected. He went to the grieving. He went to the sinful. He went to the poor. He went to the marginalized. He went to the broken. He did not sanitize His ministry to make it easier to consume. He made Himself present where things were hardest.

And then He turned to His followers and told them something staggering. As the Father sent Me, so I send you. That means faith was never meant to be a private refuge from the world. It was meant to be God’s presence within it.

One of the most dangerous things a believer can do is confuse awareness with obedience. We live in a time when we know more about the world’s pain than any generation before us. We are informed. We are updated. We are connected. But knowing about suffering is not the same as responding to it.

The parable of the Good Samaritan still cuts through our excuses. Three people saw the same wounded man. Two walked past him. One stopped. The difference was not knowledge. It was compassion in motion. It was willingness to be interrupted. It was a refusal to let convenience override conscience.

God is not asking you to fix everything that is broken. But He is asking you not to walk past what He places in front of you.

There is a reason Jesus compared the kingdom of God to seeds rather than explosions. Seeds are small. They look insignificant. But they contain life. They contain potential. They contain futures we cannot yet see. And they only become what they were meant to be if they are planted.

Our age is obsessed with big solutions. We want sweeping change. We want dramatic breakthroughs. We want instant transformation. But God has always done His deepest work through faithful, ordinary obedience.

One conversation.

One act of kindness.

One moment of courage.

One decision to tell the truth.

One refusal to give up.

History is shaped by people who kept showing up when it would have been easier to stop.

Noah did not know how the flood would end, but he kept building. Abraham did not know where he was going, but he kept walking. Ruth did not know what her loyalty would lead to, but she stayed. David did not know how his story would turn out, but he stepped forward. The early church did not know if it would survive, but it kept preaching.

Faith does not require certainty. It requires trust.

One of the most dangerous myths in modern Christianity is that faith is supposed to make life easier. It does not. It makes life meaningful. It gives us a reason to keep going when things are hard. It gives us a foundation when everything else is shaking.

Problems do not mean God has failed. Often, they mean God is calling.

Calling thinkers.

Calling builders.

Calling healers.

Calling peacemakers.

Calling people who refuse to believe that darkness is stronger than light.

There has never been a worse time to be a problem because problems are exposed now. They are named. They are challenged. They are confronted. And that means there has never been a better time to be someone who carries hope.

Hope is not optimism. Hope is not pretending things are fine. Hope is the stubborn belief that God is still working even when we cannot see the outcome.

The world does not need more outrage. It needs more people who are anchored. It needs more people who think clearly. It needs more people who pray deeply. It needs more people who love sacrificially.

It needs people who will not give in to despair.

Keep thinking. Not because you are trying to be clever, but because God gave you a mind to discern truth. Keep learning. Keep questioning. Keep growing. Faith is not fragile. It can handle inquiry. God is not intimidated by complexity. He created it.

Keep solving. Not because you believe you can save the world on your own, but because obedience matters. Because love requires action. Because faith without works is dead.

There are people who benefit from problems staying unsolved. Power often thrives on chaos. Fear is a currency. Division is profitable. But God has never built His kingdom on fear. He builds it through love, truth, humility, and courage.

You may feel small. You may feel tired. You may feel like what you do does not matter. But Scripture is filled with stories of small acts that changed everything.

A widow’s oil.

A boy’s lunch.

A shepherd’s sling.

A carpenter’s obedience.

God does not despise what looks insignificant in human hands. He multiplies what is surrendered.

You are not here by accident. You are not a mistake. You are not too late. You are not powerless. You are part of a story that is still being written.

This world is loud. Problems are everywhere. But so is God.

And He is still calling people who will listen.

He is still calling people who will think.

He is still calling people who will act.

He is still calling people who will not give up.

There is something deeply comforting about realizing that God has always done His greatest work in the middle of chaos. We often imagine that God prefers calm, clean, organized environments, but Scripture tells a different story. God shows up in storms. He speaks in deserts. He births movements in oppression. He brings resurrection out of tombs. In other words, God does not wait for the world to become safe before He begins to move. He moves so that the world can become whole.

When you look at history through that lens, our time makes more sense. We are living in an era where everything feels unsettled. Political systems are strained. Social trust is fragile. Technology is accelerating faster than our wisdom. Many people feel anxious, disconnected, and unsure of what to believe. But that does not mean God has lost control. It often means that old structures are being shaken so that something truer can emerge.

The Bible tells us that whatever can be shaken will be shaken. That sounds frightening until you realize why it happens. Shaking reveals what is real. It strips away what is false. It exposes what cannot hold weight. And when the shaking is done, what remains is what can be built on.

Faith is not about clinging to what was. It is about walking with God into what is being born.

One of the hardest things for believers in any age is to recognize that discomfort is not the same as danger. We often confuse the two. When familiar systems collapse, when old ways of thinking stop working, when comfortable assumptions are challenged, we panic. But Scripture consistently shows that God uses disruption to bring renewal.

Israel did not enter the Promised Land without wandering.
The church did not grow without persecution.
The gospel did not spread without resistance.

Growth always feels destabilizing before it becomes beautiful.

That is why God calls us not just to believe, but to trust. Trust is deeper than agreement. Trust means you move even when the path is unclear. Trust means you obey even when the outcome is unknown. Trust means you continue even when the story is unfinished.

In a world filled with problems, it is easy to feel like your contribution does not matter. But that is not how God sees it. God works through individuals who are willing to be faithful where they are. He does not need you to carry the weight of the entire world. He needs you to be faithful with the piece of the world He has placed in your hands.

Jesus never healed everyone He encountered. He healed the ones He was sent to in that moment. He never solved every injustice in one lifetime. He planted a movement that would outlive Him. He never eliminated suffering in one act. He showed people how to love in the middle of it.

That is how God works. Through seeds, not shortcuts.

You might not see the results of your faithfulness right away. You might not know how the story will end. But you are not responsible for the ending. You are responsible for the next step.

Every time you choose truth over convenience, you push back against darkness.
Every time you choose compassion over indifference, you bring light into the world.
Every time you choose courage over fear, you move God’s story forward.

None of that is wasted.

One of the most beautiful truths in Scripture is that God remembers what we forget. He sees what no one else notices. He honors what looks small. The world may measure success in numbers, visibility, or influence, but God measures it in faithfulness.

And faithfulness changes things.

So when you look at the world and feel overwhelmed by its problems, remember this: the fact that you can see them means you are being invited into the story. Awareness is not meant to lead to despair. It is meant to lead to prayer, to action, to love.

There has never been a worse time to be a problem because problems no longer get to pretend they do not exist. But there has never been a better time to be a person of faith who refuses to give up on the world.

You are living in a moment that needs clear minds, soft hearts, and steady courage. You are living in a moment that needs people who will think deeply, love boldly, and act faithfully.

So keep thinking. Keep learning. Keep praying. Keep serving. Keep believing that even when the world feels loud and broken, God is still at work.

He is not finished.

And neither are you.

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Your friend,
Douglas Vandergraph