World-As-It-Is To World-As-It-Should-Be | Jesus The Only Hope | Dr. Madana Kumar, Phd Series

World-as-it-is to World-as-it-should-be

We cannot escape bad news even if we want to, nowadays. Media channels and social media scream out bad news to us, unless we are on a media fast.

We are just sort of coming out of the pandemic. The World health organisation is still not sure that they can declare the end of the pandemic yet. Türkiye and Syria experienced one of the most devastating earthquakes in human history. Those countries are still reeling under that quake. Israel and Palestine conflicts continue with no end in sight. There is a war raging out there in Ukraine. There is political friction between China-Russia on one end and the western countries on the other. Human rights, especially women rights are trampled upon mercilessly in places like Afghanistan. Close home, many us might have been anxious about the Brahmapuram fire and toxic smoke that was on top of the local news last week. And those of us who are working on corporates are worried about the massive tech pay offs that are going on.

I can go on, but I think you got the point. The world-as-it-is, is not the world-as-it-should-be. We all long for a world that is stress free, we all want to live happily ever after. Instead, what we find is conflicts and suffering and pain. Take wars alone. I came across a very disturbing statistics recently. Chris Hedges in his book “What Every Person should Know About War” presents a chilling statistic that out of the last 3500 years of human history, only 258 years have been without any wars . That is a measly 8% of total human history. In other words, we live in a world where more than 90% of the time, there are active conflicts and wars happening around us.

The sad part is that this problem is not just at the global level. This percolates down to our nation, our state, our city, our homes, between parents and children, between siblings, between spouses, between neighbours, among community members, among religious groups, within churches, among denominations, among political parties, among colleagues in offices, between organisation leaders and employees. The list can go on. Conflicts and friction is everywhere.

So among all this world-as-it-is news, we are right if we feel helpless, we are right if we feel the strong need to act as a hero and do something about it. After all, we like to fix things right, especially men? I like to fix things when things are broken, I like to find solutions when problems arise, I like to be known as the problem solver. But when we look at the world-as-it-is situation, we are left helpless because we find that there is very little we can do to fix things around us. It is forgivable if we reach a conclusion that “Everything is meaningless” as the writer of Ecclesiastes did. (Ecclesiastes 1:2).

The question that I would like us to ask ourselves is this. Are followers of Christ supposed to feel helpless and wallow in self pity or shrug off our inability to correct the situation around us, and live in apathy? I guess the question is rhetorical. We know the answer. The answer is an emphatic No. The Cross and the empty tomb give us hope; hope of a world-as-it-should-be. And our hope is not based only on blind faith, but is backed by God’s promises given in the Bible. Let us look at a few of them to see what the world-as-it-should-be is, and what is our role in making that happen.

First fact that we can take comfort is that when we feel helpless, God is in control. God is always in control. Even when things around seem meaningless, God is in control. Bible tells us in many ways about this. One of the powerful passages that I have seen is in the book of Job. You can read the whole passage of Job 12:7-25 later. Let me just highlight a few key verse from that passage. “But now ask the beasts, and they will teach you; And the birds of the air, and they will tell you; Or speak to the earth, and it will teach you; And the fish of the sea will explain to you. Who among all these does not know That the hand of the Lord has done this, In whose hand is the life of every living thing, And the breath of all mankind? (Job 12:7-10, NKJV). This is further reiterated in Job 42:2, Psalm 22:28 and several other verses. God is in control, let us have no doubt about that.

Secondly, we need to believe that the God who is control will establish His kingdom (the world-as-it-should-be) all over the earth. Isaiah 2:2-5 provides a comforting study on this. Now it shall come to pass in the latter days, That the mountain of the Lord’s house Shall be established on the top of the mountains, And shall be exalted above the hills; And all nations shall flow to it. 3 Many people shall come and say, “Come, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, To the house of the God of Jacob; He will teach us His ways, And we shall walk in His paths.” For out of Zion shall go forth the law, And the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. 4 He shall judge between the nations, And rebuke many people; They shall beat their swords into plowshares, And their spears into pruning hooks; Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, Neither shall they learn war anymore. 5 O house of Jacob, come and let us walk In the light of the Lord ( Isaiah 2: 2-5, NKJV).