But here’s the thing: God’s best work is never a distant and ungraspable memory. God’s vision is planted in hope—not in some gauzy idealism, and certainly not in a gilded scrapbook of past glories.

God’s people trust that there’s a place for them in the future not because of their ability to secure it, but because God has promised to be there with them.

Sometimes old structures get torn down. Sometimes they wear out. Sometimes they just don’t serve the same purpose they used to serve and need to be replaced.

What the structure looks like is largely irrelevant, since what is being worked out is God’s vision of the future and not a monument to our own glorious past.

A Tale for Our Time | [D]mergent.