God works primarily with individual persons, and always has done - thus God merely "makes-the-best-of" man-made groupings such as civilizations, nations, religions, churches...

It suddenly seems obvious that God has always worked primarily with and by individual persons; and that the historical necessity by which Men came to regard divine providence and plans in terms of tribes and nations and churches was partly a spiritual fact and partly a psychological constraint. 

In other words, Men of the past experienced the world and themselves, spontaneously (often unconsciously), as part of a group consciousness. 

And reality was experienced (psychologically) as oneself being primarily a group-member, whose primary role in life was to serve the group. 

In sum: the group came first, individuality was dependent on the group. 

"Individuality" was hard for such people even to conceptualize; but insofar as it was conceptualized, individuality was spiritually regarded as a sin, and psychologically as a menace to society. 

But Man's consciousness has changed since ancient times, and so has his psychology. 

Now that the spiritual group mind has substantially dwindled and weakened to a level of insufficiency; and now that Man's psychology is substantially autonomous and spontaneously alienated - these have ceased to motivate people strongly. 

It has at last become clear that God always was working primarily with individual persons; but this fact was obscured by the earlier more "pooled" nature of consciousness, and the innate needs of psychology. 

All that stuff about God working through tribes, races, nations, civilizations - and via the primacy of churches and other institutions - we (from our individuality) can now recognize to be merely God making-the-best-of whatever and various human groupings by which men used spontaneously to identify themselves themselves. 

We now (like it or not) realize that God must either primarily be working through groups with individuals as subordinate and in-service-to group interests... Or else God relates primarily to individual persons, with groups secondary*.

(*There is an exception for groups rooted in mutual personal love, such as some families, marriages, and deep friendships. It seems God is directly concerned by such - when they are real; for the obvious reason that love is the basis of divine creation. Any individual incapable of love or excluding of love, is beyond God's reach. Thus, in summary, God works on that aspect of individual beings which is loving of other individual beings.)  

This means that we now are called upon to drop many habits of thinking about God, providence, destiny and the like. 

We need to stop thinking of God's will in terms of civilizations, nations, religions, churches, tribes...

Instead; we are asked to recognize that these institutions are man-made and man-sustained - and God simply makes the best of them. 

The future of our souls, and of the world, depends first and foremost on God's relationship with each and every being (including human beings). 

We should regard our relationship with God in terms of this inter-individual reality, and what helps this relationship - and not psychologically-erect a mandatory groupish barrier or buffer-zone between our-selves and the divine. 

And the rest of it (civilizations, nations, religions, churches, tribes...) is - ultimately - a distraction and a self-deception. 

Group-primacy is - here-and-now - a perspective capable of leading us towards evil affiliations; but not towards Goodness.