Who was the ‘designated survivor’ last night? A bunker mentality and the power of joy

If you’re not familiar with David Bernhardt today, be
grateful.

Mr. Bernhardt is the US Secretary of the Interior, an
important job that oversees the Bureau of Land Management, the United States
Geological Survey, and the National Park Service, among other duties.

But he made the news last night as the “designated survivor” during the State of the Union address.

This is a custom dating back to the 1960s when the US was
concerned about a potential nuclear attack during the Cold War. Every member of
the president’s Cabinet (except one) attends the State of the Union, along with
a joint session of Congress.

If, however, an attack was to destroy the building and kill
all those present, the government would be completely obliterated. So, a single
Cabinet member is taken to an undisclosed, secure location outside of
Washington, DC, until the conclusion of the event.

This year, that “designated survivor” was Mr. Bernhardt. Had an attack destroyed our government, you would obviously know his name today.

A bunker mentality and the power of joy

What would it have felt like to be David Bernhardt last
night?

In some ways, his status is a metaphor for evangelical
Christians in America. We can feel (rightly) that our culture is moving away
from Christian morality as quickly as possible and that we are the few who are
left on the side of truth. It’s easy to adopt a bunker mentality, to wait out
the storm until it passes in hopes of emerging again into the sunlight.

But such a negative mindset is wrong, for at least three
reasons.

One: God is still king, no matter what happens in his kingdom.

Our Lord is “the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the
only God” (1 Timothy 1:17). He alone is omnipotent and omniscient. We are
creatures, not the creator. He rules the universe as fully today as before he
created the first humans.

This is an important fact to remember in the face of
discouragement. When Elijah was…