A Vision of a Broken World

Now, this may not be accurate, but it's what I saw and it made sense to me. You know how a dream supposedly lasts only a few seconds, but you remember this whole elaborate plot? Well, that's what it felt like in church this morning. This is for church goers and non-church goers, because maybe this will make sense to you too if you've ever wondered how a supposedly loving God can cause so much suffering...

This morning, I was praying during a praise song for the people in our church (I am often overwhelmed with a burden for a whole group of people knowing they have individual struggles we don't even know about) and I was praying for God to come rain down on our service to touch the hurting and broken in my church family. And the term "broken world" came to mind. And I saw the earth like we see from space and it was literally broken, like falling apart. And God was grieved, mourning how broken it was. He was crying and so sad for everyone, for the whole earth. And I knew everyone was sick, scared, broken, dying, suffering, starving, hurting, lost, depressed, and everything horrible we know happens because of sin. Not sin like breaking-the-rules-of-the-Bible-sin and that's-what-you-get as a punishment type of sin. Not that at all. But sin as an evil thing that comes in and quietly takes over, like a presence we can't see, like fog that seeps through the cracks and affects people randomly. Maybe it affects people in the way that "bad things happen to good people". Or a child is stricken with cancer or a teenager dies in a car accident. Just tragedies we can't explain why they happen.

And in this vision I heard people ask, "if God is all powerful, why doesn't He stop this madness?!" And I knew... He will. He will. But not yet. I could go on to "preach" why not yet, but I just wanted to share that vision with you and hope maybe it makes sense to you too, maybe give you a new perspective on a "broken world" that God didn't cause nor refuse to fix. Even if you don't agree with it or want to accept it, I hope it makes a little bit of sense.
Thanks for listening, sincerely