That’s Messed Up

Scripture: Psalm 78:1-2, 34-38

Life is messed up. I don’t know if you noticed it or not. In my job I observe people, and I have to tell you the choices people make are just weird. I do not want to sound judgemental but it is pretty hard not to sound that way. People engage in numerous activities that are harmful, illegal, or both and then they wonder why things happen to them. Then on the flip side people do everything “right” and they still end up on their butts. life is messed up.

It makes us wonder what is going on. The only conclusion that I have is things happen to teach us something and we are supposed to learn. Things happen that we cannot really explain, and even then we wonder what lesson we were to learn. To be honest I do not know and many people that claim to know all of life’s anwers do not either. I want to tell you that that is hard for me to say. I like to know things and I get upset if people challenge my knowledge. I guess that’s a lesson in pride that I need to learn. No one really knows why children endure abuse or exactly why a robber chose your house to rob instead of the others on the block. I could go on but there are too many questions and I am sure that you can fill in your own blanks.

This passage does not really answer life’s questions. But it speaks of parables. A parable is a story. A story that has some nugget of knowledge that can help us down that journey of life. What we endure has some meaning even when we do not know what it is. “When he killed them, they sought for him; they repented and sought God earnestly.” What a hard thing, a hard lesson, in fact it is messed up. People wonder if God did it why would they love him. I will not defend God in this area, He can do whatever He wants. The one that created everything has that right.

This story harkens back to the wandering tribes in the wilderness where they complained against God and as a result vipers started killing people. The question is did God send the vipers or did God just let them live on their own? The desert is a pretty dangerous place so draw your own conclusion. But as you do consider your own life. How many people sleep around and then pray that they did not contract an STD or get pregnant? How many people consume a controled substance, drive, and pray that they do not get caught? What happens when the “worst” happens, well usually we blame God. We blame Him because we chose to neglect the parables of life, and then wonder why God allowed things to happen.

He kills us! That’s messed up, but it is really ourselves. We expect a lot out of God, but we do not want to take the blame ourselves. We also do not want to admit that possibly those around us might be to blame.

Life is messed up because we are messed up. We live in messed up homes, in messed up communities, in messed up nations, in a messed up world. We go to wars, killing hundreds of people and then wonder why they don’t like us. Our corporations are focused so deeply on profits and then wonder why people consider them greedy. We seek our own selfish desires and we wonder why our spouses are upset at us. We are messed up, we raise messed up kids that grow up to continue messing up the world.

Eventually we need to realize that we need to turn around and try something different. What would happen if corporations repented? What would happen if our nations would repent? What would happen if we ourselves would turn around and try something different? What would happen if we would actually try to live with God instead of against Him?

It begins with one person. That one person starts to change directions, in the process others follow till eventually the messed up world gets just a bit better. As you pray today I encourage you to ask God what area in our corner of this mssed up world you should start. Then if you get some leading of the Spirit let’s see just what would happen if continued down this new path.