God recently moved me from Connecticut to a quiet, small town in Illinois that feels frozen in the ‘90s, brick storefronts, no rush, no gloss. So when I got handed my coffee today by an Insta-perfect glam girl, it caught me off guard. Not because she wasn’t beautiful, she was, but because she looked like she belonged to the order of a new world that’s becomingg faster and shinier by the day.

And yet, even as the world rushes toward something subtlety curated, God isn’t stopping it. Those implications aren’t only cultural, they’re personal. It’s tempting to want to go back to when things felt easier or even spiritually safer. Like Israel longing for Egypt when the manna got old in Numbers 11:4–6, sometimes we long for the former not because they were better, but because they were familiar.

Ecclesiastes 7:10 Do not say, ‘Why were the former days better than these?’ For it is not from wisdom that you ask this.

It’s easy to romanticize the past when the present gets hard, but God calls us forward. Not to reclaim some golden era of faith in this world or our own idealized version of life, but to remain faithful in this one, come what may.

This world is under the sway of the evil one, 2 Corinthians 4:4 + 1 John 5:19, and God allows its spiral because our faith is proven through its tension. Our devotion isn’t shown by hiding from change, but by standing firm in it. Real allegiance means not retreating into what used to work but letting God transform us in motion, at any cost.

As Christians, our job isn’t to make this world great again, it’s fallen and won’t be redeemed until Jesus comes. God’s will is that we call people out of it. We don’t need to waste energy trying to prop up collapsing systems, whether societal or internal.

Press on, Philippians 3:14. Don’t cry out for the comfort of a former version of yourself or this world. What lies ahead is greater.

2 Corinthians 3:18 We all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory

Luke 21:28 When these things begin to take place, stand up and lift up your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.

Titus 2:13 While we wait for the blessed hope- the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ.