I wonder if we should consider it a miracle that for centuries/decades men have been putting a razor to their own throat’s and have continued to live. That thought caught me off guard this morning.

Consider all the things that we do, large and small, every day that are completely destructive to us individually and to our environment, both as individuals and as a world community. We are busy cutting our own throats. Yet, we live. There must be purpose!

Consider how the planet has suffered humanity’s polution. We have warred, leaving bombs and destruction everywhere. We have used radioactive bombs and power, which have destroyed land and ecologies for extreme lengths of time. We have created trash which destroys, creating acid rain and so much more. We have stripped the earth of its own resources, which it uses to replenish itself, like forests, watersheds, aquifers and more. We have eaten, created food, hunted and fished, to a point that we have damaged the world we live in like a blight or plague and caused animal and plant extinctions around the world. Yet, we live. There must be a purpose.

We have created kingdoms to our own glory and personal kingdoms around our individual lives, consistently devasting others and consistently failing over time. People have invaded God’s churches and turned them into something to serve themselves instead of the Lord they proclaim. Yet we live. There must be a purpose.

In the midst of all these devastations, and all the ones overlooked in this short blog, there has been mercy, love, compassion. The Lord has offered us choice, and many have chosen Him. He has invaded a corrupted earth with a plan that is so much better. He has given us visions of a life that He intended, a life that does not destroy or consume. He has given hope in times and locations in which hope would seem unreasonable. He has loved us continually when all human logic would call His choice unreasonable and impractical. He has done what only a true God can. He has been superior to all that mankind has to offer, good and bad, and offered Himself as an alternative choice. He has given us Himself, personally and intimately through Jesus, and all the communications He has used through the centuries. 

We, humanity, in our absolute worst, are loved. We, in our absolute best, are loved better that we can create or understand. We are loved by a God who takes time to communicate to us through the Bible, personally, in revelation, through others, in our circumstances, and in our history. His voice is clear to anyone who wants to hear it. We only fail to hear His voice by denying it and reveling in the less that we create for ourselves. The purpose – God wants us to have more and better, the more and better of His intention, not ours.

So how do we rest in the midst of the devastations of this world? We can rest in the knowledge that God has never been without a voice and has never failed to reach out to us throughout all the generations. He has used our own behavior to teach us right from wrong. He has given vision of life, love, truth, hope, and His many other attributes that are better than we can create or duplicate without His presence to make it happen. He has given us choice so we can love because without choice love doesn’t exist. There is a purpose.