A House of Cards - Chris Tibbetts

It was Saturday morning and my dad needed gas. My wife and I had moved back to Florida just a few days earlier, and so I jumped in the car with my dad, still hungry for reconnection and fellowship. We drove to the station on the corner, the station where he always went, but there was no gas at the station. Off we drove, further into town, past one, then another, and then another station, but there was no gas to be found at any of them. We pressed on to the next town over and then the next. There was no gas anywhere and the generator powering my parent’s refrigerator would need to be replenished soon. Like gasoline, the food supply was now becoming an issue in the region, as extended power outages, road closures, and excessive demand, had stressed the normal supply chains. We pressed on and on until we finally saw what seemed an oasis in a world without fuel — a gas station with a line of cars and fuel pumps without yellow bags draped over the handles. We got the gas we needed and we drove home. Carefully navigating the intersections without functioning traffic lights and dodging the occasional debris or standing water that was still in the road, leftovers from the category 4 hurricane that had been so unforgiving to this land just a week before. A hurricane that wasn’t coming our way — until it did — making a sharp and unexpected “jog” to the east, and giving inland residents who had previously expected only rain and moderate winds, just minutes to secure themselves before bearing the brunt of the rapidly approaching deadly northeastern eye wall.

Storefronts and homes were destroyed. In the days after, small business owners picked through what was salvageable, and defended themselves against looters who were hoping to do the same. Lives were upended and there was only one topic of conversation in the community — the hurricane. Floridians are used to this — or at least, the potentiality of this — but it’s still shattering when it happens.

A friend, whose upcoming birthday party had hastened our move back to Florida. A friend, whose birthday party was now an afterthought, called to check in on us. And as we caught up on how the previous week had gone, with equal parts exhaustion and hopelessness, he commented, “It’s all a house of cards, you know? We fool ourselves into thinking it’s not, but it is. And there’s not much holding it all together.”

We offer our trust, our faith, we seek stability in the structures of this world — the institutions or practices that we’ve come to cherish, perhaps not even realizing it’s the praxis we’ve constructed. Of course, the Word cautions us against such obvious folly, but we do it just the same. It comes so naturally, it’s as though we were born to do it. Born to lean in to the stability afforded by a good paying job, a home, and a family. Born to lean in to the commercial comforts that we desire — or at least the ones that other folks of our station possess. Born to the norm of prioritizing the here and now, and to only reorient priority to our Creator in fleeting moments of acuity — perhaps during a sermon or when reading a morning devotional. But is it all a house of cards? Is there any stability, security, or eternal significance to it all? Does any of it actually bring glory to Christ and matter in his kingdom? Is it all a house of cards?

The question is difficult. It’s difficult, perhaps, because there is nothing inherently wrong with taking comfort in a career well-built, a home well-invested in, and a financial nest egg responsibly saved. Indeed, each of these are often very good things. They can each be manifestations of a person who is mature in the faith and thoughtful about the conduct of their life. Through the ministry of service, hospitality, and Christian philanthropy, they can each be purposed for Christian labor in the world, and by God’s grace, they can be nourishing to the

 Christian. Yet, as it was for God’s servant Job, so it remains for each of us: It is the Lord who gives, it is the Lord who may take away. But if it is the latter, will our heart’s express and our tongue’s confess, “blessed be the name of the Lord?”

Perhaps we convince ourselves that the things of this world are so important, because we’ve deceived ourselves into believing that we’re in control of them. We know it’s a house of cards, but we take comfort that it’s our house, and they’re our cards. All that we’ve created, all that we’ve made, all that we’ve built, though, could be reduced to nothing in an instant. It is only the things of Christ, for whom and by whom all things exist, that stand firm. Thus, it is fitting that Christ has told us, in the Father’s house are many rooms. And he has gone to prepare a place for his people. If it were not so, would he have said, “I go to prepare a place for you?”

As I type this, I await a loved one who’s actively receiving treatment for cancer. For him, for the others awaiting treatment in this lobby, and for the hundreds of others in this cancer center, life changed unexpectedly in a sudden moment of clarity. Diagnostic clarity. Prognostic clarity. But it did not change for our Heavenly Father. For he has known the days that were formed for you, when as yet there was none of them. He has given them — each of them — to enjoy your fellowship, your worship, and your praise. Our government, our infrastructure, our careers, our health, our comforts — it’s all a house of cards. Whether by wind or by fire, by oncogenic mutation or by novel contagion, the things of today could be gone tomorrow and neither you, nor I, can do anything to stop it. Enjoy the cards for whom and by whom they’ve been given, but seek after the Father’s house. For Christ has gone to prepare a place for you, and through him, you will dwell there, forever.