I Am Scared for My Grandchildren, but Hope Remains!
“No weapon that is fashioned against you shall succeed, and you shall refute every tongue that rises against you in judgment. This is the heritage of the servants of the Lord and their vindication from me, declares the Lord.”
New York Magazine helped reaffirm our need for God. Benjamin Wallace’s article, “The Techno Optimist’s Guide to Futureproofing Your Child,” scared me half to death. I find myself worrying more about my grandsons, as I witness the fast-paced changes taking place in our world. One of the most troubling phenomena is the speed at which tech and Artificial Intelligence are transforming our society. According to the article, 65% of the jobs my kindergartener and first grader might have do not exist right now. Parents are struggling to know how to prepare their children for the world we cannot imagine.
Wallace interviewed a couple who are parents of young children and work in the biosecurity and pandemic detection industries. If anyone should have a grip on tech changes and their effect on societal change, it is those two, right? The couple laid out several potential visions of the future. 1. “They won’t need careers because, well, ‘I take seriously the possibility there will be a disaster and my children may not live to adulthood.” 2. “The world becomes a glorious post-scarcity utopia where no one needs to work and we all receive a universal basic income.” 3. “AI takes over most jobs, conventional careers cease to exist, and humans’ work is marginalized into limited roles.” 4. “There’s a disaster, but only some die and survivors need to navigate a post-apocalyptic landscape, perhaps as hunter-gatherers.” If those are our options, there doesn’t appear to be a future worth experiencing.
There are two reasons I remain hopeful about my grandsons’ future. First, throughout my 63 years, I have read numerous descriptions of our world’s destruction. As a small child, I remember nuclear bomb drills, where we hid under our desks to save ourselves from mass destruction at the hands of the Soviet Union. Further, the nuclear fear escalated, but this time with nuclear power plants. The Three Mile Island accident that produced a partial nuclear meltdown in Pennsylvania in 1979, and then the horrific Chernobyl disaster in the Ukrainian SSR, Soviet Union. These are just a few examples of the many worst-case scenarios that could have destroyed our world.
The second reason why I remain hopeful is that the God who created the world continues to redeem and sustain it. Our God is not an absentee landlord, but the One who loves and cares for us. God not only provides a door to the heavenly kingdom, but cares for us individually and as a global society. Sure, it is an imperfect world of our making, but God continues to interact in the world God created. Do not give up or give in but prayerfully trust in God’s loving-kindness. Remember your call to hand your fears over to God and remember the words from 1 Peter 5:7, “Cast all your anxieties on him, because he cares for you.”
