Faithful in Troubled Times

When the World Feels Like It Is Falling Apart: Two Things You Must Do

There is a moment most of us have experienced — a moment when the noise of the world becomes so overwhelming that all we want to do is escape. The headlines, the uncertainty, the political static, the sense that things are unraveling — it can make even the most grounded person want to find a quiet beach, sit down, and simply disappear from it all.

You are not alone in that feeling. Christians throughout history have felt it too.
In the fourth and fifth centuries, a group of believers known as the desert fathers and mothers did exactly that. They retreated into the wilderness to escape the worldliness creeping into the church and to commune with God in silence and solitude. Their desire was understandable. But here is the irony that stops you in your tracks: the God they wanted to commune with did the exact opposite. Rather than withdrawing from the world, He sent His Son into it. He loved the world so deeply that He gave everything to redeem it.

That tension — between the desire to retreat and the call to engage — is at the heart of what the Apostle Paul addresses in Colossians 4:2-6. And his words, written from a prison cell to a small group of Christians living in a difficult and confusing world, are just as urgent today as they were then.

The People Paul Was Writing To

The Christians in Colossae were not living in comfortable times. They had come to faith in Jesus — believing that He was God in human flesh, that He had died for their sins and risen triumphant over death — and that faith had genuinely transformed them. But trouble had followed. False teachers were pushing religious innovations. The broader culture celebrated idolatry. Apostles were being thrown in chains. And these ordinary believers were left wondering: what do we do with a world like this?

Paul's answer is both simple and profound. When time is short and times are troubled, you need to do two things: turn to God in prayer, and talk to people about Jesus.

Turn to God in Prayer

Paul opens this passage with a command that carries real weight. He tells the Colossians to devote themselves to prayer — not to pray occasionally, not to pray when things get desperate, but to make prayer the steady, habitual rhythm of their lives. He calls them to stay alert in it, a phrase that echoes Jesus' words to His disciples in the Garden of Gethsemane, where He urged them to watch and pray so they would not fall into temptation. The spirit, He reminded them, is willing, but the flesh is weak.
That has not changed. Our flesh is still weak. And the antidote is still the same.

But Paul does not just tell them to pray persistently. He tells them to pray with thanksgiving. This is crucial. He is not calling them to a frantic, anxiety-driven prayer life that rehearses every bad thing happening in the world. He is calling them to come before God with gratitude — to remember what they have been given, to recall the grace that found them and rescued them, and to let that gratitude anchor their souls even when everything around them feels unstable.

The Apostle Paul himself models this kind of prayer. Writing from chains, he asks the Colossians to pray that God would open doors for the gospel — not for his release, not for his comfort, but for more opportunities to tell people about Jesus. That is a stunning request from a man in prison. And it reveals something important: the prayer life Paul is describing is not self-focused. It is outward-facing. It is a prayer life that holds lost people before God and asks Him to move.

That raises a searching question worth sitting with: when you pray, who do you pray for? Are there lost people by name on your prayer list? Are you asking God to open doors for the gospel in your neighborhood, in your family, among your friends?

Talk to People About Jesus

From prayer, Paul moves seamlessly to action. He tells the Colossians to act wisely toward outsiders, making the most of the time. The urgency here is unmistakable. Every moment matters. Every interaction is an opportunity. And the wise person recognizes that and refuses to waste it.

Paul then describes what this looks like in practice. He says their speech should always be gracious, seasoned with salt — a phrase that in the ancient world described conversation so compelling and engaging that people leaned in and wanted more. He envisions these ordinary Christians going about their daily lives in Colossae, and as they do, the way they live and the way they speak raises questions. People notice something different about them. And when they ask, the Christians are ready to answer.

This is not a call to corner strangers with a script. It is a call to live so visibly rooted in Christ that your life earns the gospel a hearing. It is a call to let your peace in troubled times prompt people to ask where that peace comes from. And then to tell them.
Jesus Himself said that the gospel of the kingdom would be proclaimed to all nations — and then the end would come. The implication is staggering: the only reason the end has not yet arrived is because there are still people who have not yet heard. There are still people who will one day be in heaven, and they just do not know it yet.

The Call That Cannot Be Ignored

It is easy to stew in anger at a broken world. It is easy to live in fear about where things are headed. It is easy to become so focused on surviving troubled times that you forget about the people around you who are perishing in them.

But the call of this passage cuts through all of that. It does not tell you to retreat. It does not tell you to hunker down and wait for things to get better. It tells you to pray with gratitude and urgency, and to engage the people God has placed in your path — your neighbors, your coworkers, your family members — with grace and truth.

The time is short. The times are troubled. And there has never been a better moment to turn to God and talk to people about Jesus.