The world ought to be better. The state of the world ought not to be this way.
Like many of you, I have been (probably unhealthily) glued to the current events of unrest, violence, and change dominating our news feeds. I heard a new term for it today; doom scrolling. That’s what I’ve been doing…doom scrolling.
But this sense of unease, this pit of despair growing in our stomachs that worse may yet be to come only makes sense if the world is not how it ought to be. Therein lies the hope. If the world is not how it ought to be then…it can be better.
For a moment, put aside that unmistakable sense that we are living in a world gone wrong. What if the world is exactly as it ought to be? Indeed, what if the world could not possibly any different than it is right now?
Whence comes our despair? Whence comes our hope?
If every moment of history, from the beginning of time until now, with its untold horrors…The last two weeks as our society burns from the unquenchable fires of vengeance and jealousy…If all of this makes God maximally glorious and always has. If every moment happens precisely as it does precisely because it must happen this way to give God the most glory…how then can we call any of it bad? Why then, do we know, deep in our bones, that it is bad?
Does our foolishness of calling what is Glorious “unjust” also a part of His blueprint for life? Does He, even now, give me a spirit of stupor so that I cannot recognize His glory when I see it? And how then could I ever know the difference?
No. God provides. He provides us with His Image able to discern right from wrong, justice from injustice, “ought” from “is”. God’s glory, what makes Him glorious, is not unrecognizable. The movement of His Hand is righteous and upholds the weak. It does not look like a man bleeding in the street as his business is looted and burned in the background. It does not look like power kneeling on the neck of the powerless until the life oozes out of him. This is not glory. This is not His Plan. This is horror.
Lord, please, your kingdom come, your will be done, as it is done in Heaven your will be done on Earth, because it is not being done right now.