We can't solve modern problems by going back in time. Retreating

Host: The wind howled across the empty clifftop, carrying the salt of the sea and the whisper of storms brewing beyond the horizon. The sky was an immense canvas of grey and amber, a twilight caught between memory and possibility. Jack stood at the edge, hands in his coat pockets, eyes fixed on the waves that shattered below like thoughts breaking against the mind.
Jeeny sat on a fallen rock, knees drawn close, a journal open on her lap, its pages trembling in the wind.

The scene was quiet except for the roar of the ocean and the heartbeat of the world between them.

Jeeny: “Charles Swindoll once said, ‘We can’t solve modern problems by going back in time. Retreating to the safety of the familiar is an understandable response, but God has called us to a life of faith. And faith requires us to face the unknown while trusting Him completely.’”

Host: Her voice floated, soft yet piercing, like a prayer carried over waves that refused to end.

Jeeny: “I think that’s what this generation forgets, Jack. We keep looking backward — trying to recreate what once felt safe, pure, simple. But faith… faith is walking into the dark with open eyes.”

Jack: “Faith, Jeeny, is also a luxury. When you’re hungry, when your bills stack up, when the world burns — ‘trusting God’ feels like a story told to calm children.”

Jeeny: “And yet those same children, Jack, grow up and still need to believe in something. Otherwise, we just survive, not live.”

Host: A wave crashed violently below, sending a spray of salt into the air. Jack turned his face slightly, his jaw tightening as though the sea itself had challenged his certainty.

Jack: “You talk about faith like it’s a solution. But look around. Wars fought in God’s name. Greed hidden under the banner of ‘belief.’ Even now, people say we should ‘trust tradition’ — go back to how things were. That’s not faith. That’s nostalgia disguised as virtue.”

Jeeny: “But that’s exactly what Swindoll was saying. We can’t go back. True faith isn’t a return — it’s a surrender to the unknown. Abraham left his home, Moses walked into a desert, the early Christians stepped into arenas of lions — all because they trusted a voice that didn’t promise comfort, only purpose.”

Jack: “Purpose is easy to claim when you think there’s a divine plan waiting behind every tragedy. But what if there isn’t? What if the unknown is just chaos in disguise?”

Jeeny: “Then faith is still the courage to walk through that chaos without letting it consume you.”

Host: The wind picked up, pulling at Jeeny’s hair, twisting it into wild black ribbons. Jack’s eyes — those cold, grey mirrors — softened, if only for a second, as he watched her struggle to hold the pages of her journal. The world seemed to hold its breath.

Jack: “You always make it sound romantic. But let’s be real. Humanity has always been afraid of the unknown. That’s why we built religion, governments, rules — so we wouldn’t drown in uncertainty.”

Jeeny: “And yet every progress, every revolution, every breakthrough came because someone refused to let fear define the future. The Wright brothers didn’t cling to the ground. Martin Luther King Jr. didn’t hide behind safe silence. Even Jesus, Jack — He didn’t retreat into the familiar, He walked straight into betrayal, pain, death — for the sake of something unseen.”

Jack: “You’re comparing faith to flight and martyrdom? Those are acts of people, Jeeny — not proof of God. Humans are capable of greatness without divine instruction.”

Jeeny: “But where do you think that longing comes from? That pull toward the unknown, that refusal to stay still? It’s not just instinct, Jack. It’s soul.”

Host: The sky darkened, a bruise spreading across the clouds. A storm was coming — the kind that made land and sea blur together. But neither of them moved.

Jack: “You know what I think? The problem isn’t that people retreat to the past. It’s that they mistake comfort for truth. They want to feel safe, so they pretend the answers are already written.”

Jeeny: “And yet, faith isn’t about answers. It’s about trust — trusting that even when there are none, the path still matters.”

Jack: “That’s the problem! You call it trust; I call it blindness. We keep waiting for miracles while ignoring what’s right in front of us. The climate is collapsing, technology controls our minds, and we’re busy praying instead of acting.”

Jeeny: “But action without faith is directionless. What good is building if you don’t believe in what you’re building toward?”

Jack: “At least it’s real. At least it’s something we can measure, touch, fix.”

Jeeny: “And when it all falls apart, Jack? When the earthquakes, the wars, the loneliness come — what then? Numbers won’t hold you. Equations won’t comfort you.”

Host: A flash of lightning carved through the clouds, and for a moment, both their faces were illuminated — his in tension, hers in grace. The rain began, slow and heavy, each drop like a confession from the sky.

Jack: “You talk about faith like it’s a light. But faith has started as many wars as it has stopped. Look at the Crusades, the Inquisition, modern terrorism. Faith, untethered from reason, is dangerous.”

Jeeny: “Yes. But so is reason without heart. It’s cold, clinical, it dissects without healing. Do you remember when the first atomic bomb was built? Brilliant scientists — men of logic — justified it as progress. And yet, it burned a city into ashes. Hiroshima wasn’t the failure of faith, Jack — it was the failure of human conscience without it.”

Jack: “So you’d rather we trust invisible voices than facts?”

Jeeny: “I’d rather we listen to both. Faith doesn’t silence reason — it humbles it.”

Host: The rain fell harder now, a veil between words and silence. Jack took a step closer, his boots sinking slightly into the mud. His voice dropped — low, raw.

Jack: “You ever get tired, Jeeny? Of believing in something that doesn’t always answer?”

Jeeny: “Every day. But that’s what faith is — walking with unanswered questions. It’s not about certainty; it’s about trust.”

Jack: “I envy that. I really do. I just… can’t do it. I need to see, to know.”

Jeeny: “Maybe seeing comes after trusting, not before.”

Host: The thunder cracked above them — a split, like the sky itself was parting in disagreement. But within that sound, there was something else — a stillness, fragile yet undeniable.

Jack looked at her — drenched, defiant, faithful — and for the first time, his eyes didn’t hold doubt, but longing.

Jack: “Maybe… we can’t solve modern problems by going back in time. But maybe we can’t solve them without remembering why we ever tried in the first place.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. The past isn’t our escape; it’s our teacher. Faith isn’t about ignoring the unknown — it’s about entering it with hope.”

Jack: “Hope.” He let the word fall, heavy and strange. “Maybe that’s the closest thing to faith I can manage.”

Jeeny: smiling faintly “Then maybe, Jack, that’s enough.”

Host: The storm began to fade, the rain softening into a gentle mist. The sky cracked open, revealing a pale, trembling light over the sea — not the end of the storm, but the beginning of its calm.

They stood side by side, silent, soaked, changed — two souls who had faced the unknown, not with answers, but with the courage to keep searching.

And for that brief, sacred moment, faith and reason — like light and shadow — finally learned to coexist.