“Everyone knows this is where history is headed.”

That sentence has a soothing tone… It’s the drowsy lullaby that nothing we do matters except keeping our heads down and our hands clean.

But empires love that sentence. So do strongmen, party bosses, and anyone who profits from our resigned shrug. Inevitability is their favorite bedtime story…

Christian nationalism wants us to believe the ending is set. It wants us to accept that fear is the only grown-up emotion and that whoever loves justice must learn to live with cruelty…

I don’t believe that’s what Jesus taught us. He walked into rooms that everyone else avoided. He moved the circle outward, again and again. He kept setting tables in dangerous neighborhoods…

The myth of inevitability is powerful because it sounds like wisdom… But if mercy’s missing, it’s a wisdom rendered useless by cynicism; it’s burnout with a certificate.

Look how inevitability works: a clinic closes, and someone else’s body pays; a book disappears, and “civility” demands our quiet; a polling place vanishes, and “efficiency” borrows our patience. Jesus walks straight into those rooms, widens the circle, and sets a table anyway. So we practice stubborn mercy—groceries and testimony… The ending isn’t fixed.

Faith says otherwise. Faith says the world bends when ordinary people all lean together in the same direction… People who refuse to treat neighbors like collateral damage. People who won’t let “law and order” mean civility at the expense of justice…

I used to think the right line could win the argument… But the work now is stubborn mercy. It’s the kind that shows up with groceries, and also with a city council testimony. It’s the kind that sits with a frightened neighbor, and also stands in the way of policies that make fear the default political, social, and economic model.

Love that won’t change policy isn’t neighbor-love yet.

You’ll hear that it’s too late. You’ll hear that the other side has already won. You’ll hear that the only serious Christians are the ones willing to weaponize the cross by tying somebody else’s flag to it.

None of that’s true. The cross isn’t a night stick; it’s the protest we carry. It’s God’s “No!” to every empire’s final word. It’s picked up and carried by people who follow Jesus, pursuing a world that refuses to let anyone be disposable.

…I want to help us see how inevitability is a hideous mask. When you pull it off, you meet a person who benefits from your silence. You meet an idea that can’t survive in daylight. You meet a system that looks large until a congregation decides to be brave on a weekday.

If you’re tired, I understand. I am too. Fatigue is real. But fatigue is a lousy guide. We need to let hope do the steering…the kind that stacks folding chairs, makes phone calls, pays off a utility bill, and votes like a neighbor’s life depends on it.

I’ll keep telling the truth as gently as I can…I’ll keep believing that our small acts join together to build a larger mercy we can’t see yet.

So, here’s my prayer:

God of justice and compassion, keep us from the easy lie that nothing can change. Warm our hands for the work that heals. Teach us to love our neighbors more than our fears. Amen.

Here’s the thing: the ending isn’t fixed. It’s being written at clinic counters and kitchen tables and polling booths and church basements. It’s being written by people who refuse to be managed by despair…