Teach Us to Number Our Days: A Response to Pride Month

You can tell a lot about a society by how its people dedicate their time. What times do people set aside for a specific purpose? Think holidays, celebrations, and the daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly rhythms that orient our lives.

These societal rhythms greatly influence who we are. Whether we are thinking, speaking, or acting, any regular pattern will shape the beliefs, dispositions, and habits of our lives.

It is no mistake, then, that the cultural elites of our time have dedicated months of the year to various causes. Among these is the month of June being dedicated to LGBT “pride,” i.e., Pride Month.

Spending any amount of time on social media will remind you of this colorful reality. Many individuals, corporations, and even governments are all too eager to swap their account images or logos for a rainbow redesign.

Rainbow flags aren’t just randomly appearing. There is a concerted effort to change our culture, to change you, and to change your children—not always through force, but through the habitual dulling of our moral senses. By getting as many people as possible to witness and participate in this ritual being performed every year for an entire month, cultural elites hope to normalize everything far-left activists dream up, such as drag queen story hour—and not only that, but for society to take pride in it (Romans 1:32).

Making the best use of the time

Theologian Carl Trueman has written that in order to take over an empire, you “need to control time and space.” Pride Month, he says, is “the high feast of the progressive liturgical calendar.” It’s a calendar meant to control the time of our society, with the goal of reshaping its moral values and intuitions.

As Christians, we must use a different calendar, and we all have a part to play in countering these trends. What I mean is this: just as our culture is dedicating the time toward celebrations that ultimately reject the good, the true, and the beautiful, we must just as diligently dedicate our time to building up the good, the true, and the beautiful in our lives and in our homes.

When seeking to change culture, we are often tempted toward laziness: easily voting on election days to reform the leadership of our country while neglecting the hard work of reforming our lives. If we want any hope of a long-term change or reversal of the cultural winds, then we must do both.

As the book of Ephesians reminds us, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil” (Ephesians 5:15-16).

Rededicating time

During the month of June, I encourage you to think about how you can dedicate your time to counter the narratives and messages being pushed by Pride Month.

Some Christians are living this out by dedicating the month of June to Life (celebrating the Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade last year), to Fidelity (to contrast with the self-satisfaction of Pride Month), or to Humility (in contrast with the celebration of pride itself).

All these are examples of how to rededicate the month of June. But in truth, what will make the biggest difference isn’t what you do during June. It’s what you do the other 11 months of the year. It’s what you do every day and every week.

How are you dedicating your time year-round? Are you reading the Bible? Are you praying? Are you going to church every week? Are you dedicating time to your family and friends? It isn’t an accident that habits like weekly church attendance correlate with views that support the law’s protection of life, and of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. What you do with your time matters.

Conclusion

God is eternal, but our days are short. In the grand scheme of things, we don’t have a lot of time on our hands. That’s why the Psalmist asks God, “[T]each us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom” (Psalm 90:12). We need God’s wisdom to know how to dedicate our time. Only with His help can we effect change in our culture—both in the here and now, and for generations to come.