Our lifestyles are an exception to the general history of humanity. Shelter, transportation, food, and medicine are exponentially easier to access. Only the very wealthy used to possess the comforts available to the majority of us, even the poor. Life expectancy is longer. Information is accessible on an unparalleled scale. We now have more time to devote to the pursuit of pleasure or whatever else interests us, as well as the means to do so. In spite of that it seems that we are more restless and unsettled than ever, not contented with affluence. Instead we are an unhappy people rampant with addiction to numb our emptiness and pain, obsessed with creating false persona on social media to bolster our sense of worth, and arming ourselves psychologically to reject any perceived infringement on our personal autonomy. We are pawns of those who have hijacked the information platforms to their own enrichment or agenda, our ideas deftly shaped by the media gods. Hence the combative suspicious cynical tone that permeates the media, an attitude which is rewarded by the affirmation of attention. It is no wonder the suicide rate is skyrocketing in the absence or rejection of absolute truth. We are left with asserting an identity founded on little more than our opinion.
Those who have not been seduced by the illusion of self imposed godhood are dumbstruck by the deterioration of everything that once anchored community life. Every generation has its cultural blindness with subsequent error, yet in the past there was a unifying underlying sense of obligation to the community, the idea that one’s actions were not done in a vacuum. Of course norms were challenged and there was plenty of animosity and conflict, but there remained the attachment to community for survival.
It seems that from the comfort of affluence and autonomy we now insist on the validation of our ideas and our right to shape our identities separately from the ‘oppression’ of societal responsibility. If we were instead combing the landscape to find food and fashioning shelters from the elements this ideology would wither. Hardship forces us to collaborate rather than insist, though history recounts treachery and conflict in the midst of common world views . We face a different manifestation of humanity’s age old lust for autonomy in a time when comfort masks our weakness.
Rejecting the idea of divine descent leaves us prey to all kinds of philosophies conjecturing our origin, purpose and destiny (or lack thereof). Personally I find that attachment to the King of another realm and learning citizenship in His kingdom brings peace in the turmoil of existence. Although it is a fantastic revelation, it makes at least as much sense as the other explanations we are supposed to believe. This one has the backing of a written backstory confirmed by archeology, historians, mathematicians and even scientists, Community is currently being shredded by individuals desperately seeking to impose their will, with the additional aspect of unsuspectingly being influenced and aided by unseen powers in the spirit realm. In that scenario conflict is inevitable and evil and pain are the result. We all want answers to the meaning of life and wonder about our purpose. We are wired to significance, and if we don’t sense it in our daily pursuits we become agitated or depressed. As unlikely as it seems to our independent little selves, surrender to the One who created and upholds all of what we see (and don’t see) brings resounding rest to the very fiber of our being.
Convenience and independence mask our need for escape from the tyranny of our willfulness, complacency, and mortality. In a day when we think that what we see is all there is, Jesus beckons to eternal destiny. (Amazing!) In an age when the idea of anything being really genuine is rejected, Jesus says He is the truth. (Radical!) In a time when we are scrambling for significance Jesus says He will announce us as His siblings before His Father and the holy angels. (Astounding!) In a day when our mortality plagues us with all its decay and degeneration Jesus holds out the offer of bodily resurrection to a better world. (Inconceivable!)
In a day and age where cultural Christianity has become pretty much a bland or inadequate treatment of both eternity and mankind’s brokenness, here is an offer one dares not refuse. Trade all of the confusion, skepticism, outrage, cynicism, condescension and hopelessness for allegiance to a God Who became a man so he could relate. Then as a man He tantalized us about what is behind the skies, and paid for our passage into the next installment of the universe with His own blood shed in a most painful death. If we are that important to such a One, it’s worth at least considering. Doubt your doubts (after all, where do they lead?), recognize the arrogance of your resistance to a God unrivaled in both power and love, acknowledge the limitations of your perception, and welcome the embrace of the only One Who knows you to your core and yet opens His heart to welcome you. Trading perhaps seventy plus years of perceived autonomy for an endless life of joy seems like a no brainer. Go for it!
SALTSHAKER 