evil world

It's hard to hear stories of evil and suffering in the world.

A cyclone wipes out a country and hundreds die in an instant. Four teens break in to rob a house and end up shooting a mother of 2, paralyzing her from the chest down. A father rapes his daughter for more than a decade producing multiple kids. A family loses everything because a drunk driver crashed into them and their health care won't cover all the bills. Teenage girls resort to prostitution to provide for their family and end up contracting AIDS.

Just watch the news for more than 2 minutes and you will see stories like this everyday. So much evil is in the world. So many people are suffering.

Sometimes I grieve. Then, I imagine the grieving heart of God. I wonder if He ever just wants to destroy this place with all of its sin. Our world is like a piece of fruit fallen to the ground with ants swarming all over it. Most of us would just count it a loss. We would throw the fruit away if we cared to pick it up at all. I wonder if God ever wants to just toss us in the trash or leave us fallen in the grass.

I am reminded that He did destroy the world one time. With a flood of water, He wiped out all of the earth and left only one faithful family. And this should be a good reminder for us. The evil and sin that causes such suffering in the world is not "out there." It is "in us." Even after God destroyed everyone but Noah, sin still survived. Inside even the most faithful, sin survives like a dormant virus.

When we gasp at the horrific evil in this world, let us not forget that we are gasping at our own dark potential apart from Christ.