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This does not mean I have adopted a less apocalyptic obsession or have become a paragon of perkiness. Indeed, faith gave my conviction an uncompromising edge, and my labor an inexhaustible fuel. Such devices of indiscriminate destruction and death, which in our day lack even the morally dubious defense of deterrence, are abhorrent to the Lord who condemns the shedding of innocent blood. These hellish things still keep me up at night, ruin my sleep, make me grieve, consume my days. I still strive constantly for the abolition of nuclear weapons, God willing, despite an endemic pessimism about our chances of avoiding the most devastating consequences of our sinfulness.

But I never despaired again because that day in the stairwell, my standard changed from efficacy to faithfulness.

Such a liberty, faithfulness. The end for the faithful is a kingdom that isn't ours to attain; the means themselves become our end. Unable to pull the New Jerusalem down from heaven, we can simply walk along the way of its promise, justly, kindly, humbly.

Thus the paradox of Christian labor: the master desires one coin to become ten, but the event is in his hand. Strive as if the world is worth dying for, though it is not your death to die. Engage the demonic power systems that comprise the principalities of this world, yet do so knowing that there is nothing you can finally do to them but point to the One who made them a laughingstock on the cross. Labor as if the work of your hands will stand forever, though all that will endure to eternity is the love that occasions it. The distilled worth of our blood and sweat and tears is the testimony they bear to the Lord.

The world is not mine to save. But I can serve the mission of the God who has already done so, whose unending righteousness is demonstrated in and to an unrighteous world through Christ crucified. Then I can labor without growing weary, though not because I win every fight or achieve every aim. I don't.

I endure because all my would-be world-saving work is, in the end, merely witness to the One whose world it is.

Tyler Wigg Stevenson is director of the Biblical Security Covenant. His thoughts on spiritual-disaster preparedness are at christianitytoday.com/go/postnuclear.

Copyright © 2008 Christianity Today. Click for reprint information.

Tyler Wigg Stevenson also wrote about "Spiritual Disaster Preparedness."

Previous articles about Christians and nuclear weapons include:

What To Do About Nukes | You may not be as powerless as you think. (August 13, 2007)

The Middle East's Death Wish—and Ours | We say "everyone wants peace," but we also want to see our enemies destroyed. (July 14, 2006)

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April 2008, Vol. 52, No. 4