No One Is Coming to Save Us

After this election, I came to a realization that has been weighing heavily on my mind: No one is coming to save us, and perhaps it is time we stopped waiting for someone to do so.

Look around at the division, corruption, financial pressures, uncertainty, and constant fighting over who should be in charge. Every election brings another candidate, another political party, and another movement declaring that this time things will be different. We argue, campaign, vote, protest, and defend our positions. We place our hopes in people we’ve never met, trusting them with a future they cannot possibly guarantee. Yet, when the election is over and the excitement fades, we often find ourselves facing the same problems. The faces change, the promises change, and political parties exchange power, but the struggles of everyday people remain.

I think it’s time we have an uncomfortable conversation about what we expect from our government and, more importantly, where we’ve placed our hope.

With a giant exhale, I realize that no one in Washington is coming to save us. Congress isn’t going to save us, nor is the president, the next election, a political party, a billionaire, or another government program. Perhaps we need to accept that much of what we’ve lost isn’t coming back, at least not in the way we remember it.

This isn’t simply a Republican or Democrat problem. It’s a human problem. We have placed an enormous amount of trust in human beings and human institutions, expecting them to accomplish something they have never been capable of accomplishing: saving us. In doing so, I think we’ve forgotten something extraordinarily important. Our hope was never supposed to rest in people or institutions in the first place.

I can tell you that our hope must rest in Jesus Christ of Nazareth, and I believe that one hundred percent. Yet, if I’m being truthful, sometimes even those words are difficult for me to say. It isn’t because I don’t believe in Him, but because I look around at the world and wonder where He is in all of this.

I see suffering and injustice. I see families struggling and good people being crushed under systems they cannot control. I see corruption rewarded while honesty and integrity seem to come at a terrible cost. I watch people work hard, do their best, and try to live decent lives, only to find themselves falling further behind. Sometimes I cannot help but wonder why God allows so much suffering to continue.

I suspect I’m not the only one who has wrestled with these questions. Some of you have prayed until you ran out of words. Some have asked God for help and are still waiting for an answer. Others have watched their families struggle despite doing everything they can, and perhaps some of you aren’t even sure what you believe anymore.

I don’t pretend to have all the answers, and I don’t want to offer another religious slogan or promise that everything will suddenly improve if we simply believe hard enough. But I do wonder whether some of our disappointment with the world comes from placing so much hope in the wrong things and the wrong people.

When I look at the life and teachings of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, I see someone who offered a very different understanding of what truly matters. Jesus didn’t campaign for Rome or promise to repair the Roman government. He didn’t gather followers by promising financial security, political influence, or an easier life. Instead, He spoke about the Kingdom of God and taught people a different way of living.

Jesus taught truth, mercy, forgiveness, love, humility, and faithfulness. He challenged those who abused their authority, cared for people society overlooked, and confronted hypocrisy wherever He found it. His teachings called people to examine their own hearts and recognize that their responsibilities to God and one another were greater than their loyalty to the systems surrounding them. Jesus didn’t tell people to hand the responsibility of caring for the poor and needy over to someone else. He called us to love and care for one another.

More importantly, Jesus offered something no president, politician, institution, or movement could ever offer: reconciliation with God and the hope of eternal life beyond the brokenness of this world. That is why I believe Jesus Christ of Nazareth is our only hope. Not because following Him guarantees an easy life, financial security, or righteous governments, but because our ultimate hope cannot depend on a world that is constantly changing.

The more I think about this, the more I wonder whether we’ve become so consumed with trying to change the world through politics that we’ve overlooked the things we can actually change within our own lives and communities.

What would happen if we stopped waiting for Washington to provide the answers and began rebuilding our lives around the things Jesus actually taught? What if we created communities where people genuinely cared for one another, where struggling families were fed, children were taught truth and practical skills, and the elderly were respected and cared for? What if we stopped allowing political differences to determine whether we could love and help our neighbors?

I believe we’ve become so accustomed to depending on large institutions and purchasing nearly everything we need that we’ve forgotten how much families and communities can do for themselves. There was a time when neighbors helped harvest crops, build barns, care for children, prepare meals, and look after those who were sick or elderly. Those communities weren’t perfect, but people understood that their well-being was connected to the well-being of those around them.

Imagine what our lives might look like if we recovered some of those practices. We could grow more of our food, prepare meals from basic ingredients rather than constantly purchasing ready-made products, repair what is broken, and teach our children skills that will serve them throughout their lives. Neighbors could share tools, knowledge, and resources rather than every household struggling to provide everything independently.

We could create communities where an elderly widow isn’t left alone to manage a home she can no longer maintain, where young parents have trusted people to turn to for help, and where those without families find friendship and belonging. We could support local farmers, craftspeople, and small businesses while becoming more capable of providing for our own needs.

None of this requires us to become wealthy or politically powerful. It requires us to reconsider our priorities and become willing to live differently.

I’m not suggesting that we abandon our responsibilities as citizens or pretend government decisions don’t affect us. They certainly do. But I question whether we’ve allowed politics and institutions to occupy so much of our attention that we’ve neglected the responsibilities directly in front of us.

Perhaps the changes we’re looking for won’t begin in Washington at all. Perhaps they’ll begin in our homes, around our kitchen tables, in our gardens, at our churches, and among neighbors who decide that caring for one another matters more than winning another argument.

We also don’t need to own a homestead, move to the country, or have everything figured out before we begin. Someone living in an apartment can grow herbs in a container, prepare a meal for a neighbor, teach a child a useful skill, or visit an elderly person who is lonely. A family in the suburbs can plant a garden, reduce unnecessary spending, learn to preserve food, or simply get to know the people who live nearby. Living simply isn’t reserved for people with acreage or financial freedom. It is a way of approaching life, and we can begin practicing it wherever we are.

I want to be clear that I’m not writing from a mountaintop, looking down at everyone else’s struggles. I’m standing in the mire right here with you. I have questions, disappointments, and anger. I don’t understand why God allows what He allows, and I don’t always understand His silence. But I know that putting my hope in another human being isn’t going to repair what is broken within humanity.

Perhaps it’s time we stopped asking who is going to save America and started asking what it would look like for us to turn back toward the One who can truly save us. No politician is our savior, no government or nation is our eternal Kingdom, and no human institution deserves the place that belongs to God. Perhaps the first step isn’t convincing everyone else of that, but beginning to live as though we genuinely believe it ourselves.

That brings me to The Great Co-Mission.

I didn’t begin The Great Co-Mission to create another institution or political movement, and I certainly don’t claim to have all the answers. I began it because I believe people everywhere are longing for something different: a quieter, simpler, more meaningful life centered on faith, family, honest work, and genuine relationships.

My hope is that The Great Co-Mission becomes a gathering place where people can learn about homesteading, gardening, food independence, home education, practical life skills, caring for others, and building stronger families and communities. I would love to see it eventually grow beyond a website into actual communities where families have their own homes and land while sharing resources, working together, worshiping, and helping one another through life’s difficulties.

I don’t know exactly what that will look like or how long it will take. But I believe we can begin moving in that direction through small, faithful decisions in our everyday lives.

Jesus taught us to love our neighbors, feed the hungry, welcome the stranger, care for those in need, and serve one another. Those teachings were never intended to be beautiful words we admire and then forget. They were meant to shape how we actually live.

One of the first projects I hope to undertake through The Great Co-Mission is creating a nationwide Food Pantry Directory that people can search by ZIP code. No family should have to struggle to find somewhere to turn when they need food, and I believe we can work together to make that information easier to find.

If you know of a food pantry in your community, I invite you to share its name, address, and phone number through our Help Us Build the Food Pantry Directory page. We will contact the organizations to verify their information before adding them to the directory. I also invite you to subscribe to The Great Co-Mission for updates on the project, new articles, and opportunities to help.

If you’re able to contribute financially, please consider donating directly to a food pantry in your community. As The Great Co-Mission grows, I also hope to establish a way for people to donate food or money through our mission to support food pantries and families in need. We’ll share those opportunities once the necessary arrangements are in place.

This is one small example of what we can begin accomplishing when we stop waiting for someone else to act and start caring for our neighbors ourselves.

If you’re tired of the division, endless political promises, constant noise, and feeling that your future rests in the hands of people who don’t even know your name, I invite you to join us at The Great Co-Mission.

You don’t have to own a homestead, possess special skills, or have everything figured out. You can begin right where you are by learning something useful, sharing what you know, caring for someone in need, or making one small change toward a simpler, more meaningful life.

I cannot promise that joining a website will change the world, nor would I suggest that The Great Co-Mission is the answer to humanity’s problems. I believe that answer belongs to Jesus Christ alone. But I do believe people willing to live differently can make a meaningful difference in their families and communities.

We may not be able to repair everything that is broken in the world, but we can begin with the people God places in our lives. We can build stronger families, create welcoming communities, share what we have, and learn to live more simply. We don’t have to wait for perfect circumstances, and we certainly don’t need permission from Washington to love our neighbors and do what is right.

If this is the kind of life you’ve been longing for, I hope you’ll join us. Let’s begin building something meaningful together, one household, one neighbor, one community, and one faithful step at a time.

Let’s go home.