Finding Ways to be Bad

I saw a painting a while ago that a bunch of people were raving about. I was too ashamed to admit I didn't "get" it. I didn't really think it was very good. In fact, I thought it was bad. However, I didn't discount the possibility that I didn't understand it. Maybe it was good and I was just ignorant. I did not want to be a killjoy since others seemed to "get" it, so I decided silence was the best strategy. Since I am an artist, I figured I of all people ought to understand the deep and relevant symbolism and meaning. But I didn't. This really bothered me. Did all those people saying it was beautiful not want to hurt the person's feelings? Or did they really think it was good? I was baffled.

We are studying the book of Judges in church. The Israelites in that time period were spiraling further and further into sin. The famous refrain of Judges is "Everyone did what was right in their own eyes." That is as good a definition of "relativism" as I have seen. When God is shoved aside, there is no absolute standard of good and evil, right and wrong, and each of us determines our "reality" for ourself.

I think this is where our culture is headed. Violence, sex, and aberration is viewed as entertainment on television, video games, music and movies. Even commercials are often on the edge of pornography. Our freedoms and the morals that our country were founded on are eroded daily. People of faith are ridiculed and accused of bigotry and hate when they try to live by Biblical standards. It is difficult not to become despondent.

We are so faithless, so sinful, so far from the standard of goodness and we keep pretending all is well. Don't rock the boat. Don't point out sin. Don't hold others to any standard. Can't we all just get along? My reality is not your reality. Chill out! Coexist! Truth is not what matters! Excellence or accountability are so yesterday!

It would be hopeless if it were not that God is faithful, and is continually extending mercy and grace. God loves us, which is beyond comprehension given how prone we are to wander.

The painting is good if we say it is good, even if it is really not good at all.

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I used wisdom to test all these things. I wanted to be wise, but it was too hard for me. I cannot understand why things are as they are. It is too hard for anyone to understand. One thing I have learned: God made people good, but they have found all kinds of ways to be bad.” (Ecclesiastes 7:23, 24, 29 NCV)

"Underneath are the everlasting arms." / Deuteronomy 33:27
Charles Spurgeon:
God--the eternal God--is himself our support at all times, and especially when
we are sinking in deep trouble. There are seasons when the Christian sinks
very low in humiliation. Under a deep sense of his great sinfulness, he is
humbled before God till he scarcely knows how to pray, because he appears, in
his own sight, so worthless. Well, child of God, remember that when thou art
at thy worst and lowest, yet "underneath" thee "are everlasting arms." Sin may
drag thee ever so low, but Christ's great atonement is still under all. You
may have descended into the deeps, but you cannot have fallen so low as "the
uttermost;" and to the uttermost he saves.




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