Still Our Father’s World

Despite the sentiment once expressed by the polymath and theologian, Leibniz, we most certainly do not currently live in the “best of all possible worlds”. Christians surely know this to be true but so, for that matter, do most un-believing people. Even among Secular Humanists and nominally religious people only the most Pollyanna optimists, deliberately looking through rose-tinted glasses, have managed to convince themselves that things are “as they should be” on this planet. Such apparently self-deceived individuals are rare and getting rarer, and for good reason. The realities of these times insure that, sooner or latter, those glasses have to shatter.

For believers the knowledge that things are bad on Earth and getting worse can be a formidable challenge to spiritual formation. While joy and peace are both birthrights of the children of God, and are not supposed to be dependent on either personal or societal “circumstances”, deep discouragement over our living in such a deeply flawed world does sometimes clutch at us. When it does such discouragement can and often does rob us of the real-time experience of those birthrights, if we let it.

How, you may ask, do we not let it? Things are bad here you say and, you are right, they are. We live in a place and time when the Enemy of our souls often does seem to be the primary ruler of this particular plane of existence. At our worst moments we can find it all too easy to assume that if the perfect God of the universe is even present in this profoundly imperfect world He is not really running it. We feel at times that he has ceded most, if not all, power over planet Earth to the Evil One.

This is, however, not the case and only the Devil wants us to continue to believe that it is.

There is a wonderful old hymn entitled “This is my Father’s World”. It is in reckoning with the truth of these five words that we can escape from the lie that wickedness has somehow completely taken over, even in these dark times. The truth is it hasn’t and it can’t; not as long as a sovereign God exists, and that is forever.

Whatever power the creature Satan wields on Earth is limited by the overarching power of his Creator. We are often told in our church’s today that we live in “enemy territory”. On one hand this is true. When Lucifer fell from Heaven he apparently was allowed to “set up shop” here, but only for a limited time with limited power. Moreover our Enemy was given this time and power only to serve the perfect redemptive plan of God in Christ. The Devil, in his self-delusion, will not admit this, but we know it to be true. We know it to be true primarily because we have become personally acquainted with the cross and what transpired there.

God has always held ultimate dominion over all things everywhere. He can no more have the world wrested from His rule in the deepest sense than he can cease to exist. God is Lord even over Satan and God has given Satan the influence he has today only to work out God’s perfect plan to ultimately reveal His glory and save us. As for the Devil’s “rule” on Earth that kingdom began to die with the resurrection of the One we call Savior and the beginnings of His Church. Someday both the Devil and his realm will be gone altogether.

Moreover, while this may not be the best of all possible worlds at the moment it is still a place of great beauty and meaning. Since our Father created it it could not be otherwise. It is difficult, for instance, to look at a dazzling sunset or an azure sea and not realize that God is still very much present here. Our lives this side of Heaven are difficult but they can also be abundant because our Savior promised abundance to those He loves and who love him. We can know His love and the love of others right now and right here, and we can love in return. Earth is not Heaven to be sure, but it is not Hell either.

And it must also be remembered that the New Heavens and Earth are not that far off in our future. Then we will finally know the best of all possible worlds…and world without end.