Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.

1 Corinthians 15:24

A group of extremely wary high school students glanced my way as I sat down next to them and gave my best I-promise-I’m-not-a-weirdo smile. If I’m being completely transparent with you it’s a smile that at best has a 60% success rate, but I so desperately wanted to win over this group of high school kids.

I was new. New at everything. New to Wisconsin, newly out of college, a new Director of Christian Education, and new at convincing kids that I wouldn’t actually be the worst. I was having sweat-inducing flashbacks to my own freshman year of high school, but I took a deep breath and began the long process of building trust and creating relationships with one simple sentence, “Hey, I’m Hannah. I’m your new youth leader.”

High school kids may be a bit more honest than the rest of us, but truth be told we’re all skeptical of authority. You don’t have to keep the evening news on for long to realize that humans notoriously misuse power when it’s given to them. Does this mean every earthly authority has evil intentions? Certainly not, and we’re still called to respect them. But we’d be history ignorant fools to deny that our sinful nature has severely impacted how we use and abuse power.

The good news is all earthly authority is temporary. As Christians, we have something much greater to look forward to, “Then comes the end, when he delivers the kingdom to God the Father after destroying every rule and every authority and power.” (1 Cor. 15:24) This verse sounds threatening and scary on the surface. But it truly foretells a time every Christian longs for. A time when all authority will be perfect because the only authority will be God Himself. We won’t be wary or skeptical because of past trauma and abuse. We will rejoice with all of heaven that God reigns perfectly. Take joy in this today, dear friends. Christ is coming soon, and we will experience true perfection.

Prayer: Come soon, Lord Jesus. But in the meantime, lead our imperfect leaders to your perfect will.  Amen.

Contributed by Hannah Hayden