Ready for the worst?

Quick self-quiz: (1) If the power grid in your area went down completely as a result of nuclear warfare, your first concern would be for (a) your neighbors, (b) your food supply, (c) survival. (2) Once it’s clear that power is not coming back on for months, your chief goal is (a) helping your neighbors, (b) preserving your family, (c) survival.

It’s not a fair test, but seriously, what kind of scenarios play in your mind at the thought of apocalyptic disaster? A generation ago, Americans trembled in front of their televisions as the miniseries The Day After played out the horror of full-scale nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union.

Those fears mostly died with the Soviet Union, but now they’re back with the rise of unstable third-world nuclear powers like Pakistan, North Korea, and Iran. With North Korean sabers rattling on the other side of the DMZ, another threat joins the parade of horrors, namely that of an EMP, or electromagnetic pulse.

Don’t be quickly shaken, says Paul, but ‘stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught.’

A nuclear EMP is an above-ground blast releasing a surge of energy so massive it can take down the electrical grid of an area as large as the Midwest. No power means no computers, no gas pumps, no distribution. Planes fall out of the sky, support systems collapse, the world slows to a crawl. People start dying within hours, and killing each other within days. That’s the scenario imagined by One Second After and other best-selling apocalyptic novels.

Military experts and physicists agree that an EMP is possible, though they disagree on how likely and how severe. My research indicates it’s not likely, but even without that particular threat, nuclear and biological weapons in the hands of crazy regimes have generated plenty of worst-case-scenario news items. Should we be worried?

I was disturbed enough by One Second After to pack some emergency supplies in a backpack for the trunk of my car, just in case disaster strikes while I’m away from home. “Prepping” is now big business, and it seems only prudent to store extra provisions for the unforeseen emergency. But preparation goes beyond inverters and filtration systems. How should we prepare our souls for a worst-case scenario? What spiritual resources should you add to your emergency supply list? What about:

Food: the Word of God. Memorize it, to store the Word where it needs to be—in your mind and heart.

Water: living water of the Spirit that never runs dry (John 4:10, 7:38).

Weapons and ammo, and training in their use: Practice prayer. This is not optional.

Back-up power: Practice good works, “according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience, with joy” (Colossians 1:11).

Back-up heat: Cultivate relationships in your church, “all the more as you see the Day drawing near” (Hebrews 10:25). We’ll need each other.

Actually, spiritual prepping looks like the normal Christian life as described in the Bible. As Paul warned the Thessalonians, the “mystery of lawlessness” is always at work in the world—that stubborn refusal to repent and believe that leads to all sorts of evil. Christians caught up in the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, the Reign of Terror, the Nazi occupation, or the Cambodian killing fields probably thought the end of the world was at hand. For many of them, it was.

Don’t be quickly shaken, says Paul, but “stand firm and hold to the traditions that you were taught” (2 Thessalonians 2:15). A Day of the Lord waits for every single human on this planet. It may be sudden or slow, violent or quiet, but everyone faces a personal apocalypse. Whether in the chaos of widespread social breakdown or the stillness of a darkened bedroom, you will be put to the test.

When contemplating the end of all things, Peter tells us to be sober and disciplined as we love and serve one another—“so that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 4:11). The Lord waits, but He is coming—for you, for me, for everyone. If our prepping isn’t for that, it’s for nothing.