A Fallen World

We are daily reminded that evil exists. Tragically, it is becoming commonplace to be reminded of the existence of evil multiple times in a given day, and every time your heart breaks anew. It has gotten to the point that the heart no longer has time to heal; it no longer has time to scar over. Because the tragedies are too frequent, too ordinary, given enough of these days strung together end to end, I fear, eventually, we will lose our sensitivity to such things altogether.

Before we had the chance to process the reality that twenty souls will nevermore see another sunset or breathe a lungful of air in Texas, nine more lives were snuffed out in Ohio.

It is inevitable that when such tragedies take place, we begin to pull at threads, without ever really getting to the root cause of the problem. The reason we prefer the threads is because there is something tangible to blame. It was a knife! It was a van! It was a gun! It was a mental disease!

When it comes to drilling down, however, when it comes to getting to the root rather than the branches, we hesitate, obfuscate, and redirect, because the truth is jarring and earth-shattering. It’s when we get down to the root cause of any given thing that our ability to make excuses, disappears, and all we are left with is the binary choice of whether we will deal with it or not.

It’s when we get down to the root cause that we are forced to see something for what it is and not what we want it to be.

The root cause of all the death, violence, darkness, and destruction heaped upon this world is spiritual. What we have is not a gun problem or an anger problem, what we have is a spiritual problem, and if we hope to remedy it, it requires a spiritual solution.

We live in a fallen world where darkness has its home, and save for the flickering lights here and there, the darkness would be complete.

The natural progression of evil is to worsen. Evil does not abate on its own; it does not improve on its own; it must be confronted and pushed back against. Evil is degenerative, and the hearts in which evil resides grow increasingly enflamed.

To say that we can remedy what ails us as a culture by any other means than the spiritual is naïve, and infantile. It’s like expecting to lose weight while consuming the entire menu of any given fast food restaurant just because you ordered diet soda.

Until we are honest with ourselves and acknowledge that this is a spiritual matter, and take steps to deal with it on a spiritual level, such horrors will continue to be commonplace, and lives will continue to be lost.

The consequence of departing from the light is that you will be surrounded by darkness. The consequence of departing from the truth is that the lie will engulf you. Whether as an individual, or an entire nation, the reality of this truth is undeniable. 

With love in Christ,

Michael Boldea Jr.