#571. Using "we live in a fallen world" as an excuse not to do anything about it.
Jul 1st by JonWe are developing faster, smarter ways to mess up our lives. Thirty years ago, the Internet didn’t exist and no one started off their testimony with the line, “Things were going well until I discovered Internet porn.” Now though, if I had a nickel for every time I heard that I would easily be a Christian Thousandaire and wouldn’t need to start my Stuff Christians Like scented candle line as a way to earn extra cake.
We can download, connect, and social network our lives into the pit in about 4 seconds. We don’t even need a computer to do it, we can be in a meeting on our iPhones having side conversations that are going to wreck our marriages and our lives. And when a friend asked me about this trend, about whether I thought the world was getting worse or better, I was quick to say worse. “We live in a fallen world” I said, and we keep going deeper into levels of fallenness. (See that? Fallenness isn’t even a word and I just flaunted it as if it were. For shame fallen world.)
But if I’m honest, then I have to confess that sometimes I use that as an excuse to not work for positive change. I toss out “fallen world” like some sort of stamp when I don’t want to make the effort to care about a certain cause, or become emotionally involved in a difficult situation.
Crime rate up? We live in a fallen world, there’s nothing you can do.
Hate your job? We live in a fallen world, there’s nothing you can do.
Canada Geese refusing to migrate back because they like the sweet, tender grass of your lawn and prefer your predator free neighborhood instead of the northern tundra, crossing the road at in opportune times regardless of traffic rules, hissing at you when you refuse to feed them salty cracker treats, and constantly reminding you that they are the most entitled bird in the world?
We live in a fallen world, there’s nothing we can do.
School systems crumbling? Recycling not working in your town? Healthcare problems?
We live in a fallen world, there’s nothing you can do.
Hopefully, you’re not like me. Hopefully you see that when God gave us His two greatest commands, love Him and love others as much as we love ourselves, He didn’t say, unless you live in a fallen world. There was no caveat that gave us the freedom to give less than love if the world we’re living in is less than perfect. If anything, a fallen world is a world that needs love the most.
The depths we sink to as a society force us to give even deeper love.
The darker things get, the stronger the need is for brightness.
That we live in a fallen world is not an excuse to give up or not try, it’s a motivation to try even harder. God placed us here, in this time period, because the world needs love like never before. My love, your love, our love. That we live in a fallen world shouldn’t prevent us from living out of God’s love. If anything, it should prove the need for us to be doing that.
And even though that last paragraph felt a little “benefit concerty,” I think it’s true, fallen world or not.
Comments
This post made me think of Fiction Family's song Closer Than You Think. I have to admit that hearing people say stuff like oh well, I can't do anything, it's a fallen world TOPS my list of pet peeves.
you slayed me with the geese.
I have just come to the hesitating realisation that the 'fallen world' idea could be the greatest consolation for the spiritual and physical nausea I have felt for most of my life. It seems to me, that for humans [and most of the biological world], the competitive and evolutionary aspect of life can be just too overwhelming. No attempts to conventionally theorise – and to compensate for one's [and other's] lack of success in this area ever work. Conventional approaches to religion don't help much; the competition and bitterness is still there throughout. Only surmising that the entirity of creation is in a fallen state would attempt some meaningful explanation for this state. What then of the winners in life? The beautiful? talented? clever? privileged? cool? or more tellingly – the well proportioned, blithe element – who don't have to think too much, but can merely live? Who knows? They can come up with their own explanations for the unfairness of life – should it ever occur to them.
Further to my post, I've just read a few more comments regarding things 'getting worse'. This seems to me a real non-starter. During my 51 years on the planet, nothing fundamental has changed. In fact as I get older, all that happens is that I re-visit [unwillingly], the various failings and feelings I've had throughout. This seems so much a part of life that something extra to evolution must be at work. One has to live in hope.