“Put not your trust in princes, in a son of man,
in whom there is no salvation.”
Psalm 146:3

I had an interesting conversation with a young adult yesterday about the state of the world. I think I did a pretty good job keeping my opinions to myself or at least keep from shutting the conversation down. Adults have a way of doing that, I have found. At least this one particular adult does. I guess I remember being young and not thinking my opinion mattered. Young adults today have the same situation. This person already knows the gospel but doesn’t want to hear it, so we left it alone.

That’s OK because we ended up talking ABOUT the gospel without realizing it. Actually, it was about PART of it. You see, the young adults I know personally are dismayed by what they see in the world. They see pollution, racism, poverty, and war. When you think about it, this younger generation has grown up with their country in a constant state of war. That’s all they know. Plus, they see politicians who solve nothing about any of these problems.

Bringing things closer to home, they grew up with conflict in the home, divorce, the financial struggles of single-parents. They have to share their broken families with step-parents and step-siblings. They are exposed to drug and alcohol abuse. Raunchy sex of any flavor is a click away on their hand-held phones. They escape into violent video games and spend hours each day on social media.

And even though they know these things are bad, they grow up doing the very same things adults do – hurting themselves and others.

What was this young adult’s conclusion? That there is something inherently wrong with people. I found this very interesting because parents, schools, and psychologists insist that people are good, but that’s not the observable data. Sure, people do good things, but why then don’t we stop hurting each other? An infraction here or there is one thing, but one would have to be intentionally blind to ignore all the pain in this world.

I find it particularly interesting in that this person has come up with the same conclusion as that of the bible, that all humans are flawed far worse than we realize. And the more we dig into it, the worse the problem actually is.

Is this person extremely clever to understand this? No, I think this is observable to all of us, no matter our mental horsepower. The problem is that we lie to ourselves and deny this foundational truth of humans. Our churches are just as guilty as parents, teachers, and psychologists in this. Actually, our churches are MORE guilty because we use the bible to teach others, yet we refuse to believe what it says.

Why is it a problem to deceive ourselves as we do? Because there is an answer that works. None of the other alternatives work, but there is one that does. Lies and deceit keep us from truly looking at that answer and pursuing it.

The more I think about it, that conversation was worth more than a goldmine. There is far more to be discussed, and I am confident that will happen. God was involved in this one. He’s be involved in the next. Everything in its due time.

Father, thank you for opportunities such as this. Amen.

Copyright © 2020 Scott Powers