One of the unexpected gifts of travel is perspective.
I’m an “aisle seat” guy, so I’m not talking about the perspective from an airplane window. I’m talking about the kind you gain by standing somewhere that reminds you just how small your own moment in history really is.
By the time you read this, I will have spent several weeks moving through England, Serbia, Greece, Romania, France, and Egypt on Manna U business.
I’ll have walked the streets of London and Oxford. Wandered through Belgrade and Thessaloniki. Visited Philippi, where Paul first preached the Gospel on European soil. Stood along the harbor at Kavala, ancient Neapolis, where that missionary journey first began. Spent time in the villages of Romania’s Maramureș region. Walked beneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris (shout out to long layovers). And finally, stood in Cairo, where kingdoms once believed they would last forever.
Every place tells a story.
None of them are the first to wrestle with uncertainty.
It is easy to think our generation is uniquely divided, anxious, or unstable.
Spend enough time around ancient cities and that illusion begins to disappear.
Think about it. London has survived plague, fire, war, political upheaval, and economic collapse.
Oxford has spent nearly a thousand years debating ideas that still shape the world today.
Belgrade has reportedly changed hands more than forty times throughout its history.
Philippi witnessed the birth of the first Christian community in Europe under Roman occupation. Don’t forget, the first European convert to Christianity was a woman named Lydia!
The villages of Maramureș quietly preserved faith and tradition while empires rose and disappeared around them.
Cairo has watched dynasties, caliphates, colonial powers, revolutions, and governments come and go.
History has seen all of this before, and I find that strangely comforting. Do today’s challenges matter? Absolutely. They are significant. Yet, they are not unprecedented.
Every generation tends to believe it is living through history’s defining moment.
However, history reminds us that civilizations continue.
The Church continues.
The Gospel continues.
One of the reasons I love traveling is that it quietly dismantles historical hubris.
We begin to realize that the questions we wrestle with are often very old questions.
- How do we live faithfully?
- How do we lead wisely?
- How do we respond to conflict?
- How do we raise families?
- How do we steward influence?
- How do we remain hopeful when the future feels uncertain?
Those questions have echoed through monasteries, universities, marketplaces, synagogues, churches, and homes for centuries.
At the risk of sounding like a bot: We are not inventing them. We are inheriting them.
Sometimes we approach the Bible as though it were written into a stable world.
It wasn’t.
Israel lived under foreign powers. The early Church grew beneath Roman occupation. Paul wrote many of his letters while imprisoned. Peter addressed believers scattered by persecution.
The biblical story has always unfolded in complicated times.
Faithfulness has never depended on favorable circumstances.
It has depended on a faithful God who chooses to move in and through faithful people.
I enjoy visiting historic places so much because they remind me that my own moment is part of a much larger story.
Kingdoms have risen.
Kingdoms have fallen.
Christ remains King.
Our calling is to be faithful within history. One day, someone will walk the streets where we lived. They will read about the decisions our generation made. They will inherit the institutions we built, the churches we strengthened, and the leaders we formed.
We cannot control how history remembers us, but we can decide how faithfully we serve while we are here.
We are not the first…and by God’s grace, we will not be the last.
Dr. Carlo A. Serrano, President