Articles
Making the Best of the Mess We’re In
When God created this beautiful earth that would be our home He surveyed all He had made and pronounced it very good!
It was an ideal world, a place of perfect order and peace. All was well—until the first pair decided to do it their way instead of what their loving Creator had told them.. At that decisive moment our world became deeply infected, and it hasn’t been the same ever since.
If only those made in God’s image had been willing to follow their Maker’s plan, we would know no war, nor crime, nor broken homes—nor the thousand other ills that have invaded God’s once-perfect world.
But invade it they did—and with a vengeance. We can only imagine what an ideal world would be like. In the meantime we must deal with the very flawed one we have.
What is so remarkable about all this is that we’re not the only ones who are having to put up with a sin-cursed earth. God has been doing it from Eden onward.
And He has been doing far more than merely enduring. He actually sent His Son down here—down from heavenly glory into earthly grime.
For a third of a century He was surrounded by the squalor, pettiness, meanness, and general messiness of human life.
Nor did Jesus come here merely to observe. He came to do something about it.
But, oh, how it cost Him! Yet even after suffering an execution worthy of a criminal, He still refused to give up on us. Even after being so violently rejected He sent out a message of reconciliation and redemption, starting in the very city that had cast Him out!
Think of it! We have a God who loves us enough to be patient with our slowness to grow, our hesitance to believe His great promises, and our reluctance to let go of our own selfish ways.
And here’s the point: if a perfect God has been so willing to deal with us in our far-from-perfect condition, can’t we, so flawed ourselves, be a little more patient with the imperfections we see in others—especially at home and in God’s family, the church?
