Ours is the age of anxiety.
We were sold a vision of our hyper-technological era as one that would see our biggest problems solved and our greatest ailments treated. But despite the promise of cancer cures and flying cars, it is our cortisol levels that have soared. We are drained by our devices, bewildered by social-media fights, and battle guilt while scrolling through texts from our parent group over how just a single fast-food cheeseburger can break a child’s health for a lifetime.
In the age of “fluid modernity,” everything changes all the time. Marriages collapse; families break apart; parents and kids whir through life like bees in a hive. We occupy 5, 10, 15 places of residence before we start talking about “settling down,” even as we change jobs on a rotational basis. Against this backdrop of constant stress and change, small wonder that so many pilgrims of hyper-modernity turn to medication, therapy, and “positive thinking” for aid.
But there is hope for frazzled people like us. It is found in an unlikely place: the Old Testament. But not just any corner of the Old Testament; the spiritual detox we need is nestled deep within the Book of Jeremiah. In Jeremiah 29:5, we read: “plant gardens.” A shimmering worldview hides in this little phrase.
In A Call to Cultivate, bestselling author and theologian Dr. Owen Strachan helps readers to replace a mindset consumed by anxiety in favor of a biblical focus on cultivation. As the Israelite exiles came to Babylon, God called them to plant roots and cultivate shalom (holistic peace and flourishing) in the midst of anxiety, madness, and chaos. We need something radically different as our pursuit: cultivation. We need to A Call to Cultivate, meaning a lifestyle that centers in joyfully nurturing life, building lasting living things, and going deep with God. It is not merely the body or the mind that need healing, after all; it is preeminently the soul.
