How the World Works

Reading Proverbs this morning and it struck me how familiar all of it sounded. Be honest. Be generous. Be humble. Be of good character. But the funny thing to me is that each of these instructions is couched in the language of how the world works. Not perfectly, of course—sometimes the wicked do get ahead. But that’s the exception. These are the rules.

Christianity is about redemption. Part of this means subverting the way the world works because it’s broken. But quite often it also means embracing the part of the world that is still good. I’m very good at seeing how the world doesn’t measure up, and that’s helpful. But I’m in trouble if I forget that goodness is still woven into the fabric of the universe.

In a world where survival of the fittest seems to be the norm, where love must break in from some other place, it’s good to remember that the created order in all its goodness has been defaced but not erased.