So.
This headline went out recently:
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Gotta sell copy, right? With a headline like that, the Daily News certainly peddled a few papers, stirred up yet another controversy in America, and got people talking – or screaming. The backlash was immediate and caustic and… Merry Christmas, Everybody! May there be peace on earth and good will toward men, right?
Strangely, my reaction to this article was pretty benign. But you know what’s weird? Ultimately, I get it.
This statement comes from a place of legitimate pain and frustration that comes from the strain of trying to navigate our way around and through a fallen, broken world where we could easily believe that Evil is more powerful than Mercy and Love. How we wail, how we lament, how we blame.
Blame is always the first step when we want to fix something, right? Point out what’s wrong, call out the guilty, and circle the wagons. Strip their power and get someone in that position who will do something about all this!
Fix this.
The things is, humankind has been doing this circle dance since humankind showed up. Humankind can’t seem to get off this hamster wheel.
This time around, one political party accused the other political party of hiding behind religion and posturing themselves as having some proximity to God; trying to appease the troubled masses with placations and platitudes instead of actually getting out there and doing something about the problems in this world. The only glitch is… no political party is fixing this.
So, the very people who said, “God isn’t fixing this!” hasn’t been able to fix it either. Religions have taken a crack at fixing this world – even my own – and they have all come up short as well. Philanthropists and do-gooders and tree-huggers and bleeding hearts are probably my favorite groups of those trying to do their part to eradicate Evil that comes in so many forms.
Talk about pointing your finger at someone only to find you have three fingers pointing back at you, right? Everybody’s pointing because we all think we’re right and everyone in our own camp confirms it.
This “God isn’t fixing this!” headline sounds like some pretty harsh words that show up in the New Testament… except I think it went more like:
26“You blind Pharisee, first clean the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of it may become clean also. 27“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs which on the outside appear beautiful, but inside they are full of dead men’s bones and all uncleanness. 28“So you, too, outwardly appear righteous to men, but inwardly you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.” (Matthew 23)
Ironically, the Guy who hurled those accusations at the religious leaders of His day was God, who was on this planet at the moment He said this for the sole purpose of “fixing this”. In this instance, He was calling out a group people who postured themselves as representatives of God, but who were really only serving themselves.
Listen, vote however you want and I will too; you go to your church, and I’ll go to mine; but no man-made system, religious or political or philanthropic or otherwise, is going to “fix this” – whether it be gun violence, hunger, poverty, war, crime, racism, sexism, terrorism, stupidism, and anyotherism you can think of.
Humankind can’t fix what we broke.
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Take that to the bank.
What is so ironic about this headline, “God isn’t fixing this!” is that God is fixing this. He has fixed this. And He will fix this.
I can hear you already, “Daisy, you’re a sweet girl most days, but you are deranged! Open up a newspaper! Turn on CNN! Look outside! The world is on fire, and there are many, many people out there in this world who are being overcome by an insidious contempt for human life! And you speak of a God who IS fixing this world? You dare say He already HAS, but then back pedal and claim that He WILL? Respectfully, sweetheart, you’ve lost your mind.”
It’s the very stuff of fairytales.
I know. I feel you. I do. And for someone who was consumed by the unconscionable appetite of evil run amok for the first nineteen years of her life to be able to write on this blog and declare without hesitation, “All of my hope is in God and in His Kingdom that has always been, that is right now, and that is still yet to come; and He is, indeed, fixing this,” is a miracle in and of itself.
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This is the season that we celebrate God’s coming – to fix this. There will always be people who say with their mouths that they have tapped into the Source of all truth and have garnered God’s approval and blessing and that we should follow them to find the solutions to the problems we face.
They’re full of crap.
We can be Hope Givers, and we can be swept up in the momentum of His will, His plan, and His Great Commission to bring peace and redemption and healing to a desperate world. Apart from Him, however, all our efforts are futile.
Yeah, I said it. You know why? Because I’ve opened the newspapers. And I’ve watched CNN. And I’ve looked right outside my door. And I can see that the world is on fire. And I’ve been to the manger, and I’ve been to the cross, and I’ve been to the tomb that lies empty and hollow and vacant – as empty and as hollow and as vacant as my heart was without Him – and that was when I was in church twice on Sunday and Wednesday nights… wrote a whole book about it.
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The Child born to us has born in me a Kingdom. Call me deranged. Call me a liberal for reading the Daily News and voting how I vote and posting the things that I post. Call me whatever you like. Because Christ has called me Hope. Christ has called me Beloved. Christ has called me His own. And He is fixing what is broken – in me.
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Daisy Rain Martin is an author, speaker, advocate, and educator as well as a founding member of The Flying M-Inklings Writing Group. Her comedic memoir, Juxtaposed: Finding Sanctuary on the Outside, was Christopher Matthew’s #1 top selling book in 2012. She has a free e-book on her website for anyone who has or is currently being sexually abused called, If It’s Happened to You. Her next book, Hope Givers: Hope is Here, will be out soon. Daisy is also the Editor in Chief of RAIN Magazine, an online magazine that has been a fundraising effort for her three favorite charities and features new, up-and-coming writers. Please follow her weekly blog, SATURDAISIES, which addresses a plethora of current issues including child advocacy, all things hilarious, and matters of the heart. She would love for you to join the Rainy Dais Community by friending her on Facebook and Twitter.