There can be no argument on this one.

There is a lot of suffering in this world.

There is a lot of broken stuff and there are a lot of broken people. There are angry broken people who harm themselves and others and there are innocent people who are broken due to illness, misfortune, and circumstances beyond their control.

In a word, our world is not the way it should be.

If God is all powerful and all knowing, then why is this world, his world, such a mess? In a lot of different ways, I hear people ask this question. When they don’t get the answer that they want, they often reject God.

So……how do we reconcile an all powerful, all knowing creator, God……….with a world that is such a mess…….a planet that is, in fact, dying right before our eyes?

There are several factors:

The first is that the world we live in and the culture that we live in are not anywhere close to what God had in mind. God created a sustainable ecosystem. He put us in it, gave us free will, and left us in charge. We rebelled and it has been downhill ever since. That story pretty much summarizes the old testament.

The second is that God hasn’t cleaned up our mess. He certainly could if he wanted to. Maybe he has lost interest. Maybe he doesn’t care. Maybe he figures that we deserve the mess we’ve made. Maybe this mess is our punishment. While those are possible explanations, I think that the real reason is more complex.

The real reason has to do with free will. Our free will is very important to God. God would prefer that we fix the mess ourselves. Most of the new testament deals with guidelines that would fix our world and our culture……….if we would only follow them.

The two central guidelines?

Love God and love your fellow man.

These guidelines are closely tied to free will. And that is where the trouble begins. Love is closely tied to free will. Love must be given freely without compulsion. Love that is forced by compulsion is not love at all. And what God wants from us……in fact, the only thing God wants from us……..is love. You cannot have love without free will……….and you cannot have free will without love.

So…….in order to get the only thing he wants……love…… God is stuck with our free will……and with the mess it has created on his planet and in our culture.

The irony here is that the suffering that we see every day is a direct result of the free will that God had to give us in order to get the only thing that he wants from us…….love.

God wants love.

Love requires free will.

Free will creates choice.

Choice can be good or bad.

Bad choices create suffering.

And that is the history of mankind in five lines.

That is why we are in the mess that we are in.

I have to believe that God has hope in love.

I have to believe that God is conflicted by our use and misuse of free will.

I have to believe that God is profoundly saddened by the suffering that we create.

Suffering, it turns out, is not the creation of God. The suffering that we see and experience every day……..is our own creation. It grows out of our misuse of God’s gift………….free will.

God is not indifferent to our suffering

God suffers with us.

 See, I am setting before you today a blessing and a curse the blessing if you obey the commands of the Lord your God that I am giving you today;  the curse if you disobey the commands of the Lord your God and turn from the way that I command you today by following other gods, which you have not known. 

Moses, NIV

I have set before you life and death, blessings and curses. Now choose life, so that you and your children may live and that you may love the Lord your God, listen to his voice, and hold fast to him. For the Lord is your life, 

Moses, NIV

My bible reading today is “The Magnificat”. It is the song/poem of a pregnant, unwed teenager living in a culture where pregnant unwed women could be stoned to death. She had been sent away from her family, probably to hide her pregnancy. The father is nowhere in sight.

Her response?

“My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has been mindful of the humble state of his servant. From now on all generations will call me blessed, for the Mighty One has done great things for me—holy is his name. His mercy extends to those who fear him, from generation to generation. He has performed mighty deeds with his arm; he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts. He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble. He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, remembering to be merciful to Abraham and his descendants forever, just as he promised our ancestors.”

Mary, NIV

To really grasp the gravity of this, consider Mary’s situation from her perspective……..looking forward. If she even survived, she probably faced a life with no job, no family, no support, rejection by society…….and a hungry mouth to feed.

By any logical accounting, Mary’s situation was a disaster……..and it was about to get worse. It was quite possible that she would not even live through it…….if the legalists got their hands on her.

And yet, her reaction to this disaster is not dispair…….but, rather joy, thankfulness, and praise.

How can that be?

Looking back, the answer is simple. Mary knew something that nobody else knew………or at least something that they didn’t believe. Mary knew something…….that was simply impossible.

Mary was joyful because she believed with absolute certainty in something “impossible”.

And here is the moral:

Limiting yourself to believing only in what is “possible”, ultimately leads to dispair. The best possible case? You are going to die. And I’m not even going to mention the worst possible case.

Believing in the impossible leads to joy…….even in the face of disaster. Because……..there is a part of you that is supernatural.

There is a part of YOU that is impossible.

YOU are eternal.

We all have bad days…….. fairly often…….car accident, lost keys, missed appointment, late for work.

We also have disasters………loss of a job, illness, homelessness, death of a loved one. These are less frequent……..but we all face them. Furthermore, our disasters are no worse than what Mary faced.

So……when, disaster strikes, the key to dealing with it?

Don’t dwell on the “possible” outcomes.

Remember, that you have been promised the “impossible”.

That promise comes from a creator who loves you and who has your back………all day……..every day.

“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.”

God, NIV

We live in a world where we are constantly told that there is no real truth.

It’s all relative.

It depends.

Everybody’s situation is different.

What’s right for you may not be right for me.

Do your own thing.

I just need this.

I’m OK…… you’re OK.

But, if you listen to your heart, you know things……..things that are constant……..things that are right…….things that are true.

So………my question for you today is this:

What is the greatest truth that you know?

The love of a parent for her child.

There is beauty in the world.

There is evil in the world.

It is right to be kind.

It is wrong to cause another pain.

Relationships are important.

Loneliness hurts.

Love……….it all seems to come back to love.

These truths are deeply ingrained in every one of us. We sometimes ignore them or deny them……..but they just will not go away. They are in our “operating system”……..our “read only memory”.

In a word…….they are written on our hearts.

When we pursue these truths, we are happy.

When we discard them…….or lose them…….we feel pain.

We cannot wish them away. We cannot replace them with self made rules in order to satisfy our appetites.

We can rationalize. We can justify. We can pursue appetites that go against them. We can weasel our way around them. But, our attempts to get around them are, at best, temporary. In the final accounting, our attempts to violate them always result in pain. They are absolute and immutable………in spite of what the culture tells us.

How can these ideas be so universal……..so uniform across cultures……… so constant over time?

Simple……..it’s because they are true.

These ideas are what Christianity, at it’s heart, is all about. They are in our hearts because they were put there. They were put there because they are essential. They are as critical to our lives as the chemistry that runs out bodies. Discard insulin and your body fails…….. discard these truths and your life fails.

It’s just that simple.

Love

Love God

Love your neighbor

That…….is the truth that is in your heart.

Love.

And that is Christianity.

So……..the challenge here is to examine your heart. Dig deep and find the truths that are clearly written there……… written there by God. Be careful not to substitute your appetites for God’s truth. Your appetites are transient. God’s truth is eternal.

This search is the beginning of wisdom.

“Of all the commandments, which is the most important?”

“The most important one,” answered Jesus, “is this: ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no commandment greater than these.”

Jesus summarizing Christianity, NIV

Honor your mother and father.

Rolls off the tongue doesn’t it? And yet how good are we at following this command?

For many years, I saw my mother as shallow and my father as distant. But lately, I’m seeing them more clearly. My dad ran a business. For decades he worked 6 1/2 days a week. My mom raised me and my brother and sister and did the books for the business.

Here is today’s epiphany:

I never heard them tell a lie. A lot of things happened in my family and a lot of things didn’t happen. But, every day a thread ran through it…….the truth. If my mom or dad said something……it would never have crossed my mind that it might not be true. You can say that that was the 50’s and that things are different now. But, are they? Has the truth gone away…….or possibly become unfashionable?

Watch TV tonight. You will see instance after instance where a well crafted lie is used to reach a goal. And the scary part is that this is presented as a positive thing. We even have a term for someone who strives to tell the truth and do the right thing. We call him a “Boy Scout”…………and this is not a complement. Telling the truth is often seen as evidence of naivety or lack of sophistication………or just plain stupid. We entertain ourselves by watching people lie and kill each other for hours every evening…….every day. We see that the best tool for solving a complicated problem is a handgun.

Just this week I heard a science based show on NPR that pretty much said that we should abandon the idea of truth. They said nothing is absolutely true, it’s all a question of probability.

And that doesn’t even come close to what we see on the “news” and what we hear from our leaders. Our leaders and the talking heads on our TV carefully edit the facts and present us with just the data that supports their agenda…….all in the name of promoting “the greater good”. They honestly believe that what they are doing is noble.

Is it any wonder that we have lost our mooring?

Is it any wonder that we have mass shootings?

Is it any wonder that we need web sites to tell us about the lies that other web sites tell us?

Is it any wonder that Facebook and Twitter block posts that don’t align with their agenda?

Here is an exercise for this week:

After dinner, turn on your TV. The first time someone tells a lie……the first time someone is killed…… the first time someone uses a gun to “solve” a problem……..the first time a talking head presents a “fact” that sells some political agenda…….turn it off.

You should have a good book handy……because I can guarantee you that you are going to need it. Or maybe you could go out into the yard and play with your kids…..or an even more radical move…….talk to them. Tell them the truth. Don’t lecture them about your politics.

We worry about the time our kids spend on their computers, cell phones, and tablets. But I can make a good case that what we adults consume on TV is far more destructive than “Roblox”.

Don’t lie

God

noun

“the power or right to give orders, make decisions, and enforce obedience.”

“he had absolute authority over his subordinates”

Authority has its root in the Latin word “auctor” which means originator or creator.

It is closely tied to the idea of legitimacy. When we act with authority, our actions are legitimate. When we act without it, our actions are unauthorized……. illegitimate.

Authority is very important in our daily lives…….in both obvious and subtle ways. When you see a flashing blue light in the rear view mirror, you pull over……..why?……..because the police officer has authority.

Authority, it turns out, is what allows you to make decisions that affect your life…….and the lives of those around you. Ultimately, authority translates into power. Authority works best when the people on both sides of a question recognize the authority behind the decision.

Parents of teenagers deal with this every day.

If you have raised teenagers, I’m sure you have heard this one…….”You aren’t the boss of me!” If you haven’t yet dealt with a teen……..just wait. Teenagers, it turns out, often have a problem recognizing authority…….and that leads to conflict and pain.

We make decisions and act on them….. all day……every day. The success of those actions depends on the authority behind them.

So……..where does authority come from?

Authority is created. And the key issue is this:

Who creates authority?

In life, just as in the military, there is a “chain of command”. You have a boss……and your boss has a boss and so on. You have authority, because it was given to you by someone above you in the chain of command. Ultimately, at the top of the chain……at the top of the pyramid……there is an entity who creates all authority and passes it down. Ultimately, all authority comes from a creator………the creator.

And that is where the trouble begins.

Authority creates power. Authority and, therefore, legitimate power……..flows down the “chain of command,”.

And we hate that. We cannot abide someone telling us what to do. We want to be the boss. So…….we try to create authority on our own. We decide what is right and wrong based on our wants and needs and on our intellect. And so does the other guy. This is the cause for all of the mayhem in our world. A guy with a gun walks into a convenience store and exercises his self created authority over the girl at the cash register. Congress and the courts exercise their authority over the health care system and legalize abortion……..and capital punishment……….and in the past, slavery.

It turns out that……just like everything else……..there are rules governing authority.

1. Authority is given to you…….by someone who has received it…..from someone who received it……..and so on.
2. You cannot create your own authority out of thin air.
3. Legitimate rules and laws are based on legitimate authority.
4. Power follows authority.
5. There is ultimately one source of authority……..the creator…… God.

The corollary:

No God > no legitimate authority > mayhem

And that is where we sit today in our modern progressive society. There are thousands of people who have tried to create thousands of different authorities…….all of them attempting to legitimize that person’s appetites……….all of them going in different directions…….and this is tearing us apart.

For example:

Many of us have decided that we have the authority to decide………whether we are male or female. Some of our educators teach this in our schools.

There is an organization called NAMBLA. They are trying to create a societal authorization for pedophilia.

I’m sure that we could both expand this list all day long.

The cure for the mayhem?

We must all recognize the same legitimate source of authority…….the guy at the top of the “chain of command” ……….the creator…….. God.

If you try to create your own authority…….if you yell out “you aren’t the boss of me!”……… then you are trying to become the creator……..you are trying to become God. And you will invariably come into conflict with others who are doing exactly the same thing……..others who have every bit as much authority as you do.

Two visions of authority……. “I’m the boss” vs. “I have a boss.”

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.
It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate,
I am the captain of my soul.

Invictus, William Henley

When Jesus had entered Capernaum, a centurion came to him, asking for help.  “Lord,” he said, “my servant lies at home paralyzed, suffering terribly.”
Jesus said to him, “Shall I come and heal him?”
The centurion replied, “Lord, I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. But just say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”
When Jesus heard this, he was amazed and said to those following him, “Truly I tell you, I have not found anyone in Israel with such great faith………….Then Jesus said to the centurion, “Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.” And his servant was healed at that moment.

Matthew, NIV

The abortionist and me………we live very different lives.

I get up, put a fire in the fireplace, get a cup of coffee and spend an hour or so in prayer, meditation, and writing these posts. Then I go to my shop and spend the day making things out of wood and selling them. I come home, have dinner, spend the evening with my wife and go to bed.

The abortionist, gets up, has his coffee, drives to the clinic, spends the day killing children, goes home, has dinner, spends the evening with his wife and goes to bed.

If I put us side by side and ask the question:

“Am I a more righteous man than him?”

There is no doubt in my mind…I am more righteous……at least from where I stand.

So far so good.

But…… there’s a problem.

The problem is a problem of scale. My scale runs from Hitler to Mother Teresa. On my scale I am way more righteous than the abortionist. And I feel great. But, in the final accounting, my scale isn’t the one that matters. It’s God’s scale that counts.

God’s scale of righteousness…….his spectrum of righteousness…. runs from Satan to God himself. And on that, much wider, spectrum of righteousness, the difference between me and the abortionist, while it is real…….is insignificant.

On the scale that counts, there is no meaningful difference in righteousness between me and the guy who kills ten or twenty children a day……every day…….for money.

From God’s perspective, the abortionist and I are in the same boat.

And that is humbling.

And that is why I desperately need forgiveness

That is why I desperately need mercy.

That is why I rely on God and on his love for me.

That is why I rely on his incredibly generous gift of salvation.

Incredibly costly and unearned by me.

Thank you Abba, for creating me, for loving me, and for forgiving me.

Amen

“There is no one righteous, not even one;

Paul, NIV

All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.

Isaiah, NIV

For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus,

Paul, NIV