The World As It Once Was

Imagine a world that lacks so much of what our world has. This world doesn't know what pain is. Disease isn't even a known word. Neither children nor adults starve to death or even go hungry. There is no pollution. No one is physically or mentally disabled. There is no fear. There is no evil. There is no shame. There are no lies. There is no war. People in this world don't get hurt or hurt each other. They don't verbally, physically, sexually, spiritually, or emotionally abuse each other. Death is a concept to be discussed and warned against, but as a reality it does not exist.

Imagine a world that has in surpassing amounts what our world has in miniscule portions. Love primarily. People love one another deeply in thought, words, and action. Their relationships are pure, innocent, intimate, vulnerable, teeming with life. Joy fills every heart. People share everything they have and every part of their lives with each other. People sense and understand that they are creatures of infinite worth, and they treat others in light of that reality. People have work to do, but it is not exhausting, stifling, draining, stressful, or necessary for survival. The work they've been given is a part of the joyful, lifeful, and whole pattern of life.

This world is not absolutely perfect, but it is absolutely good. It sure would be wonderful to live in a world like that. Sure sucks that we don’t. Surely the infinite God could have come up with better than this - even better than the world we can imagine. It's kind of frustrating at times that the world we live in isn't like that. Frustrating is probably too light a term. Sometimes, it outright pisses us off that God created a world that is full of so many horrible, terrifying, distressing, heart-breaking events and realities; a world that is missing so much good. The problem with our anger is that it's not rightly placed.

God didn't create a world full of evil, pain, and death. The world God made is much like the one we imagined, but so much better. Our minds cannot reach to places of such wonder, to such goodness, to such holiness. It's easy to forget that the world we live in is not the one God created, but the one Satan perverted.

The world changed when people sinned. The entire makeup of the world became twisted and depraved. It's the natural result of people choosing evil - choosing that which is not of God. God created a world that could be corrupted because He created people that had a choice. He gave people power. He graciously granted them not only the capacity for the volition to choose God's way or their own, but also allowed their decisions to have powerful effects on the world around them. Love allows for painful screwups.

It's too easy to blame God for all the terrible things that exist in our world today. They are there because He created a world that honored humanity and that granted them the ability to choose. We chose death in forms of illness, relational separation, shame, hiding, pride, fear, bitterness, depression, meaninglessness, starvation, hoarding, and a great number of other forms. God's Love for us, Love that Redeems, is His motivation for blessing us with the choice to live in Him or in destruction. There is no compulsion or coercion in Love. The best world possible is one where humanity has the option to accept and give love, or to not. Love is the highest Virtue.

Glorifying Ourselves (pt. 1)

I want glory. I have a friend who wants glory. Who doesn't? Often we go after glory, but it's the wrong kind of glory, and we pursue it in the wrong kind of way ultimately because of our faulty motivations that come from reprobate desires. Going after glory is a pretty ubiquitous thing across humanity. I believe it is true that in every human being is an inherent desire for glory. It's God-given. But it has been Satan-twisted.

Let's start here: We've been given a righteous desire for glory that the fall has perverted. People want glory and they try, we try, to acquire it through being exalted by others and exalting ourselves. We try to merit glory from others by impressive outward acts of: strength, alcohol consumption, perseverance, humor, morality, athleticism, god-talk, intelligence, serving others, owning the right stuff, generosity, mocking others, and a host of other reasons, some undeniably bad, others parading as good. The opinions of others are the hope upon which our glory rides. Often when people are not getting a convoluted imitation of glory from others, they look to themselves, their own self-image and self-talk to obtain glory. They base their glory on both their external and internal life. Then people are able to consider not only notable deeds worth glory, but their good motivations, what they're capable of, and how they compare to others. Both of these paths to glory are broad and futile.

Glory from other people and ourselves is shabby. It's dependent upon our own actions and how worthy of exaltation they are with respect to the actions of others and how worthy of exaltation their actions are. Because it's about doing things and being a person who is worthy of glorification above other people, it destroys our relationships with the rest of humanity. It's a glory that is constantly shifting up and down with the opinions of others and our view of ourselves. It is not something that is always there. On top of that, it's not even something that's really there.

The "glory" itself, as I've been calling it, is falsely called so. People by themselves are depraved, broken, insecure, foolish, envious, and sinful little creatures. Contracting glory from others simply means one is estimated, by people with poor judgment, to be better comparatively than other people, other - really not that good - people. It's an illusion of glory. There's nothing actual about it. Consequently, it does not satisfy. It leaves us always wanting more of it, always going after it in everything, and every time it leaves an emptiness and a longing for the glory that a part of us believes we should have.

A Dynamic Relationship

I grew up being taught a philosophical version of God that illustrates Him as all-powerful and all-knowing. He knows everything that's going to happen and as a result has preplanned every use of his infinite power. He's immutable, unwavering, insusceptible to outside influence. The Earth is in His complete control and His plan will not be altered. He is too massive and too staunch.

It's just not true. It's philosophically true, if you're Plato. But I think it's pretty plain that philosophy can get us to so many different places. Logic goes almost anywhere. What's important is the presupposition of truth that logic necessitates. To get anywhere logically we must first assume certain things to be true. If the truth presupposed is false, then it's highly unlikely an array of sensible thinking and cogent conclusions is going to get anywhere true. Positing the Bible as true, it does not work out that God is unshifting and unmoving.

Some things are that way in God. Some things are the way they are and that's the way they're going to be. God's character does not change. His ultimate plan for salvation was ordained before Creation and will not change in the future. His design for the finality of life on earth, the second coming, is not going to suddenly be modified. His love isn't ending. His strength isn't weaning. His holiness isn't tainting. His glory isn't dimming. His faithfulness isn't dwindling. YHWH is I am. He is. He was. He always will be. But relationships don't work that way. His relationship with us is dynamic.

That's what Scripture tells us. God was going to kill the entirety of the Israelite population, but Moses prayed desperately to YHWH and made a number of appeals that changed how God dealt with the Israelites, He spared them. Hezekiah was doomed to die of a disease in a very brief period of time, but he prayed and the compassionate God modified Hezekiah's fate and gave him many more years to live. YHWH was going to destroy Ninevah, but they repented in their hearts and with their actions, and the merciful LORD spared them. Scripture tells us that we get what we pray for with faith, we are able to, like a woman with a judge looking for justice or a poor person begging at a door, obtain from God what we ask when we ask with great perseverance and constancy. The prayer of the righteous is powerful and effective.

God listens to us. God's actions are changed by our desires expressed to Him through devoted prayer. So often I find people who believe that their prayer is without efficacy, that it has no impact upon what God does. But it does. It does. We have to get that through our head. Scriptures explains to us that it does, tells us stories about it, and essentially assumes it to be true. If we believe this, it will change the way we pray. Prayer will no longer be a powerless act of tradition and rote spiritual behavior; it will be more than a way to inner peace and development of a personal relationship with God. It will be the way God created it to be, the way it truly is for those who believe - full of power.