I think it would be farfetched for anyone to say, “All is right in the world.” Far from it, all is not right or well or calm. More than ever, it seems the world is turned on its head and extremely messed up.
The question is, though: “Has the world ever really been right-side-up?” When claims of returning to the good ol’ days rise, I really have to ask if there ever existed such a day. Simpler times, perhaps, but evil has always been around.
Why is that? Why does every generation seem to be shocked at the evil that lurks behind each tree?
We are shocked at evil, because we think we are in control when we turn our backs on God. We’re not.
This story started long ago, back to the time when all really was well and right with the world, because it remained in its perfect state. As God added the creation of man and woman to the garden, they were made in his image, “created to delight in harmonious relationship, to love God, to love each other.”*
Then something went wrong. Where it all went wrong was when the love God instilled in them, shared with them, allowed them to experience, turned. Paul writes about this kind of love to describe the sinners we all became: “lovers of themselves, lovers of money…lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God.”*
Reeves makes a great point about the cause of all the issues that face us in the world today:
Lovers we remain, but twisted, our love misdirected and perverted. Created to love God, we turn to love ourselves and anything but God. And this is just what we see in the original sin of Adam and Eve. Eve takes and eats the forbidden fruit because a love for herself–and gaining wisdom for herself–has overcome any love she might have had for God.
Delighting in the Trinity, p. 65.
You see, God’s love is never an inward, selfish love, but a love that shares, that gives, that sacrifices for fellowship. God’s love lives in harmony. The twisted, selfish, inward love of sinful man knows only discord and broken fellowship.
There you have it. The simple explanation for the troubles of this world. No reason to be shocked at all we see and hear today. As long as man’s love is turned away from the one in whose image we’ve been made, discord and chaos are sure to follow.
For God so loved the world, that he GAVE…
May we return to the One who first loved us and know love restored, before we reach the point of no return.
Grace and Peace
*Reeves, Michael. Delighting in the Trinity. IL: InterVarsity Press, 2012. p. 65.
2 Timothy 3:2-4.