the world torn apart
It has been a tough run in our world these days. Nuclear dangers in North Korea. Fierce fighting in the Middle East. Recently, I have been convicted that we human beings would far rather fight that sit down and listen to each other. (I was convicted because I realize how quick I am to fight!) During VBS this week, one of my 6th grade students said something that I thought was awfully insightful, "The whole world is like a little brother and sister, fighting back and forth." Isn't that true? Have we ever grown up? I guess sin stunts our growth. But what it comes down to is what James wrote in his New Testament letter: "What is causing the quarrels and fights among you? Isn't it the whole army of evil desires at war within you? You want what you don't have, so you scheme and kill to get it. You are jealous for what others have, and you can't possess it, so you fight and quarrel to take it away from them. And yet the reason you don't have what you want is that you don't ask God for it. And even when you do ask, you don't get it because your whole motive is wrong – you want only what will give you pleasure" (4:1-3, NLT)
Our entire world would be a whole lot better off if people gave each other the benefit of the doubt, and listened--really heard--what the other was saying. And yet, I know that this was the purpose of the United Nations...and it hasn't succeeded too well. The UN seems stymied in buearcracy and ineffectiveness. What was to be a mass of nations, gathered together with the goal of world piece is all too often a mass of confusion and nothingness.
If the UN--our best hope for peace in this world--has failed, where will we turn? There is only one place to turn and that is to the One who make all things new. It may not be on our time frame, but we sinful human beings should realize in times such as these that our best efforts at peace have failed. Our best efforts at making ourselves safe through astronomical spending on a military have failed. Our best efforts at spreading democracy around the world so often fail. America is a great country, one that I am unutterably proud to be a part of, but it will never bring new life to dead people. People (such as us!) who are dead in sin and self-interest. People who are thirsty for power and corruption. People who care nothing for their neighbor. People--dictators--who rule over and crush their nation. Only Christ can bring resurrection from this morass of death. We hope for what we do not yet see, believing that it will come, in God's time. Without Him, we have no hope at all.
Our entire world would be a whole lot better off if people gave each other the benefit of the doubt, and listened--really heard--what the other was saying. And yet, I know that this was the purpose of the United Nations...and it hasn't succeeded too well. The UN seems stymied in buearcracy and ineffectiveness. What was to be a mass of nations, gathered together with the goal of world piece is all too often a mass of confusion and nothingness.
If the UN--our best hope for peace in this world--has failed, where will we turn? There is only one place to turn and that is to the One who make all things new. It may not be on our time frame, but we sinful human beings should realize in times such as these that our best efforts at peace have failed. Our best efforts at making ourselves safe through astronomical spending on a military have failed. Our best efforts at spreading democracy around the world so often fail. America is a great country, one that I am unutterably proud to be a part of, but it will never bring new life to dead people. People (such as us!) who are dead in sin and self-interest. People who are thirsty for power and corruption. People who care nothing for their neighbor. People--dictators--who rule over and crush their nation. Only Christ can bring resurrection from this morass of death. We hope for what we do not yet see, believing that it will come, in God's time. Without Him, we have no hope at all.
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