ramblings about the world today
The following is some slightly coherent ramblings about the condition of our world.
You know that heartbreaking feeling you get throughout your whole body when you see a traumatic (or near traumatic) event? For instance, a few years ago we lost our youngest son for just a moment at Chick-Fil-A. In that moment, I kept calm and acted quickly to find him (it all turned out okay- no worries). But my entire body was in turmoil with that feeling. You know the feeling I’m talking about?That’s how I feel about our local church, the global church, our nation and the entire world right now. So many bleak and disastrous tragedies are happening all around me all day long every day. It hurts my heart (yes… even this stoic, Vulcan-like man is moved with emotion). And here I sit, on my couch, scrolling through my Facebook newsfeed for the last three hours making witty comments and laughing at some silly memes, all the while putting off mowing the lawn or cleaning the garage.
Law. Liberty. Life. Love. And a bunch of other values, morals, and principles are all being threatened or taken away. Babies washing up on shore and ripped from wombs. People killed for their faith. People killed for their jobs. People killed for their skin color (whatever color it is). People jailed for their religious convictions, even though it means actually obeying the law (because SCOTUS’s “decision” doesn’t actually change existing law- right?). Haven’t we had enough of all this? It’s all been going on for millennia, I know. Maybe it’s just due to social media, regular media, and technology that we see it more. But perhaps it’s all really grown worse than before.
I pray about this stuff. Do I crawl into a closet on my face and plead with God to end it all? No. My prayers are more like “God, comfort the grieving families of those lost. Help the [insert group/person/etc.] see the error of their ways and reveal yourself to them. Strengthen and encourage the persecuted.” That kind of stuff. I believe in prayer and all the passages about powerful and effective prayer and persistent prayer. I believe it. I also believe in both the sovereignty of God and the free will of man.
I know there’s all that “contact your representative/congressman/senator” stuff. And theoretically that’d work for some of this nonsense.
But what I’m struggling with in this moment is the seeming feeling of powerlessness. Let me take you back to the time we lost Konnor. Had it not been for that CFA employee who found him (as he was looking for us- btw, this all happened in a matter of about 2 minutes or less), he could have wandered out into a street and this story could have had a very different ending. At the moment that mattered, I was powerless and had no ability to truly impact the final outcome of the incident.
That’s how I feel about this world we live in today. Do I believe there’s some innocence left in this world? Yes. Do I raise my boys and work with my students to try to influence the world for the better? Absolutely. So wear your blue today, and share those great articles, and put red “x”s and crosses, and Arabic letters on your profile pic. But is it enough? It’s like there’s an urgency that can’t be accommodated. Like we’re all watching the real-life, grander scale version of that AT&T texting commercial happening in real time and we can’t seem to do anything about it except wait for its finality.
But hey… it’s college football season now. So there’s that, right?
baileyplanet 