Some days I half-jokingly think, ‘stop the world; I want to get off’.

I, like a lot of people I know, am sick of it. The world has always been crazy, but now it’s seemingly on a really high dose of steroids.

Fed up with the opinions and commentary, I delete my social media apps multiple times per week. I clench my jaw and feel smoke coming out of my ears, just looking at the biased and divisive news headlines scrolling across my computer screen if I’m not quick enough to click another tab before they pop up. I can’t recall the last time I intentionally powered on the television and selected a news channel, and I have absolutely no intention of doing so any time soon. If I did, I would need to hold to the old adage, “believe nothing that you hear and half what you see” anyway, so what’s the point?

What strikes me as perhaps most insane is that we think we can fix the entire world with some new answer. In the year 2020, we can find a way to make everything alright because suddenly we all realize something we never knew before and suddenly there are brand new solutions to age old problems. If we can just have a new conversation, pass some novel legislation, pay out reparations, form a public demonstration, make a current declaration; if someone would create a futuristic innovation; if we can implement advanced educational indoctrination, and maybe all read a few powerful quotations…then somehow, the world will have restoration, some form of contemporary salvation! You know where it all of it really leaves us?…In a deeper state of frustration. (And, while I am rhyming, maybe also in need of a vacation.)

If we think the heart of mankind can truly be changed by publicly posting and displaying our positions or opinions or passing different laws, we are deceived. If we think we can teach something different in the classroom or talk about things in a fresh new way, and in result change the course of either history or the future for the better, then we just don’t get it. If we think the answer is in the form of an elephant or donkey, or that we are going to vote it in, out, up, down, or sideways, we are under strong delusion.

We live in a fallen world. It’s not going to be fixed by us and any of our grand new ideas.

The answer isn’t in the world. The answer is in The WORD.

There is no reform without The Redeemer.

There is no mercy without The Messiah

There is no true grace without The Gospel.

There is no change without Christ, The Corner Stone.

There is no real justice without Jesus.

There is no kindness without The King of Kings.

There is no wisdom without The Way.

There is no turning without The Truth.

There is no light without The Life.

There is no peace without The Prince of Peace.

There is no consolation without The Comforter.

There is no hope without The Healer.

There is no Unity without The Unchanging God.

There is no salvation without The Strong Tower.

The world is in despair; it’s depressing, dismal, desolate. The WORD (Jesus) is not. We can choose which to follow, which to cling to, which to draw from, which to reflect.

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. John 1:1-5, 14

The world needs The WORD.

Written by Ashley Fountain 7/7/2020