The Life We Were Taught to Secure

How a Democratic Imagination Distorts the Kingdom and What the Garden Reveals

By Josh Singleton | Founder, serving as Lead Cultivator, The Neighborhood Garden Project

The Gospel has gradually been reshaped through a democratic lens, even though it was revealed as Kingdom. This shift did not occur because Scripture changed, but because formation preceded interpretation. Long before most people learned how to read the Bible, they learned how to survive within a democratic culture. Authority was assumed to be distributed, autonomy protected, risk managed, and responsibility carried primarily by the individual. Those instincts rarely disappear when Scripture is opened. Instead, they quietly shape how it is understood.

In a democracy, individuals are ultimately responsible for their own welfare. In a Kingdom, the welfare of the people is bound to the reputation of the King. These two realities form entirely different postures toward life, provision, obedience, and trust.

This formation is reinforced not only through politics or economics, but through an entire life script taught from childhood. Education is framed as security rather than calling. School leads to college. College leads to credentials. Credentials lead to a well-paying job. Employment secures health insurance. Insurance mitigates risk. Life insurance protects against loss. Retirement accounts promise future rest. Church is added for moral grounding and community support. Passion is deferred. Enjoyment is postponed. Life is treated as something to be endured responsibly now, so that freedom might be earned later, when energy is diminished and risk is lower.

This script is not accidental. It trains people to trust systems before trusting God. It forms patience around accumulation rather than obedience. It delays joy in the name of prudence. It assumes that provision must be secured early and enjoyment rationed carefully. Passion is treated as a liability. Calling is subordinated to stability. Risk is framed as irresponsibility rather than faithfulness.

Within this framework, God is rarely rejected, but He is consistently placed at the margins. He becomes the one who blesses the plan rather than the one who establishes it. Faith is practiced alongside insurance rather than instead of anxiety. Church participation becomes a stabilizing influence rather than a reorienting allegiance. The Kingdom is acknowledged, but life remains governed elsewhere.

This is why Kingdom language feels disruptive rather than comforting. Kingdom does not begin with career ladders or contingency planning. It begins with surrender. It does not promise deferred life after security is achieved. It calls for life now, rooted in trust rather than accumulation. Jesus does not invite followers into a well-managed future. He invites them into obedience that reorders the present.

The garden stands in quiet contrast to this formation. It does not defer life. It does not accumulate guarantees. It does not postpone fruitfulness until conditions are ideal. It requires presence now. Attention now. Trust now. Growth happens when it happens, not when every safeguard is in place. Life is not postponed for safety. It is stewarded in real time.

This contrast exposes the deeper question beneath formation itself. Whether life is something to be secured before it can be lived, or something entrusted to a King whose reputation is bound to the flourishing of His people.

Democracy assumes shared authority, while Kingdom assumes surrendered authority. Democracy elevates choice, while Kingdom centers allegiance. Democracy protects autonomy, while Kingdom reorders the self. Democracy manages risk, while Kingdom trusts provision. Democracy requires justification, while Kingdom calls for obedience. Scripture consistently assumes the latter.

From Genesis forward, God binds His name to the condition of His people. When Israel flourishes, God is honored. When Israel is scattered, God’s reputation is questioned among the nations. God Himself names this logic clearly, restoring His people not because they earned it, but for the sake of His holy name (Book of Ezekiel 36:22). The welfare of the people is presented as the reputation of the King.

Jesus arrives carrying this same Kingdom reality. He does not announce a belief system to be evaluated or refined. He announces a reign. “The kingdom of God is at hand” (Gospel of Mark 1:15). To His original listeners, Kingdom did not mean personal values or voluntary participation. It meant rule, authority, and submission. For this reason, Jesus never crowdsourced obedience. He called, and people either followed or walked away. Democracy asks Jesus to explain Himself. Kingdom requires surrender.

This contrast becomes unmistakable at the cross.

When the Gospel is democratized, Jesus is primarily framed as dying for humanity. When the Gospel is received as Kingdom, Jesus dies for the glory of the Father. These emphases are not interchangeable, and they form entirely different disciples.

When the cross is centered primarily on human benefit, it becomes transactional. Jesus dies so forgiveness can be secured, safety guaranteed, restoration achieved, and assurance obtained. These realities are true, but when they become the center, the Gospel subtly shifts. Salvation becomes the product. Jesus becomes the means. Authority remains quietly lodged with the individual.

Scripture presents a deeper and more costly ordering. Jesus goes to the cross first and foremost in obedience to the Father. “Father, the hour has come; glorify your Son that the Son may glorify you” (Gospel of John 17:1). The cross is not an emergency response to human failure. It is a revelation of Heaven, the moment where perfect obedience makes the Father fully known.

Paul names this without hesitation. Jesus “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him” (Epistle to the Philippians 2:8–9). Obedience precedes exaltation. Glory follows surrender. Redemption flows from Christ’s submission, not the reverse.

A democratic lens asks what the cross accomplishes for humanity. A Kingdom lens asks what the cross reveals about the King.

This distinction clarifies why “taking up the cross” has often felt burdensome rather than life-giving. In many contexts, the cross was framed through moral and behavioral approval. Effort, restraint, and visible obedience became the goal. The cross functioned as a tool for self-management rather than a doorway into surrender.

Scripture never frames the cross as moral improvement. Jesus does not say, “Take up the cross so behavior improves.” He says, “Take up the cross and follow me” (Gospel of Luke 9:23). The cross is not about earning approval. It is about the loss of self-rule so another life can be revealed.

Paul makes this explicit: “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me” (Epistle to the Galatians 2:20). The purpose of the cross is not better behavior. It is replacement. One life yields so another may be made visible.

This Kingdom orientation reshapes how trust is practiced.

Language such as “In God we trust” often functions as contingency rather than confession. Trust is placed first in systems that can be forecasted, insured, audited, and defended. God is acknowledged, but not depended upon. When those systems succeed, they receive credit. When they fail, God is questioned or blamed. This reflex reveals a misplaced posture. God was not trusted as King, but retained as explanation.

In the Kingdom, the King is neither a backup plan nor a scapegoat. His reputation is bound to His people at all times, not selectively acknowledged in success or interrogated in loss. Scripture does not present suffering as evidence of divine absence. The cross itself stands as proof that God’s reign often works through obedience rather than prevention.

This reordering of trust clarifies why language of allegiance can begin to feel weighty. Allegiance is covenant language. It concerns authority, responsibility, and representation. When allegiance has been centered on a King, duplicating that devotion elsewhere creates dissonance. This is not rebellion, but alignment. Jesus names this plainly: “No one can serve two masters” (Gospel of Matthew 6:24). The statement is not a rejection of earthly structures, but a refusal to confuse them with ultimate authority.

Kingdom allegiance does not produce contempt. It produces clarity. Gratitude remains. Participation remains. Responsibility remains. Worship does not transfer.

This clarity is made visible in the garden.

A garden does not survive because it is self-sustaining. It survives because it is tended, and even then, outcomes are never controlled. Weather arrives without permission. Frost comes. Drought comes. Loss happens. And still the soil is worked. Seeds are planted. Faithfulness continues. Gardening cannot operate from contingency trust. Seeds require trust when nothing is visible. Roots grow without witnesses. Soil holds life long before results appear.

When loss occurs, the garden does not search for blame. It responds with renewed faithfulness. Democratic instincts panic here, demanding guarantees and protection. The garden refuses that posture. It moves at the speed of alignment rather than anxiety.

Healthy soil is not anxious. Healthy roots are not visible. Healthy growth is not rushed.

Waiting in the garden is not passivity. It is attentiveness. It is grace. Scripture names this posture as strength: “In returning and rest you shall be saved; in quietness and trust shall be your strength” (Book of Isaiah 30:15). Quietness here is not inactivity, but freedom from fear. When anxiety loosens its grip, discernment becomes possible.

This is where movement and waiting converge. Democratic systems struggle here because such intersections cannot be scheduled, justified in advance, or approved by consensus. They appear only when waiting has been faithful and movement is required. Scripture promises this form of guidance: “You will hear a word behind you, saying, ‘This is the way, walk in it’” (Book of Isaiah 30:21). That voice does not speak early. It speaks when obedience becomes necessary.

The garden lives this truth daily. Seeds do not panic about the future. Soil does not scramble to secure outcomes. Life responds to trust. In doing so, the garden bears quiet witness to the King.

Life is no longer framed as something to be managed.
It becomes testimony.

That posture may look reckless to a democratic imagination.
In the Kingdom, it is simply faithful.