Is the World Good?

It’s an odd thing to be lucky and not know it. When you grow up in a stable family, with great parents, and go to a great school, you are lucky. For me, I realized in college not everyone was lucky like me. As I began to realize maybe I had lived a lucky life, in an unlucky world - I white-knuckled my grip on the concept that the world is good, that if I was optimistic, it would stay good. Until that grip wasn’t enough.

Forest Gump tells us, “Life is like a box of chocolates, never know what you’re going to get.” Each decade to me has a different flavor of chocolate. I’d consider my childhood something with a delightful filling, that lights up your eyes. I’d say my teens added some extra textures to it, maybe a little crunch here and there but still sweet. My 20s have been an unexpected taste, bitter at times with an aftertaste of sweetness. I’ve never felt more deeply the truth that you can hold joy in one hand and sadness in the other.

It’s intimidating to know that as life goes on it gets richer, and richer doesn’t always mean better. With more love comes more heartache. With more life comes more laughter. With more time comes more sorrow. As time carries on, and you hold the weight of the good and the bad in the world, it’s easy to wonder, is the world really good? Or did I just live in a fantasy?

This year in particular has made me question more and more whether the world is good. I’ve always had a positive outlook. And yet this year I’ve wondered, how is the world good? I know kids trying to make it to one more birthday, and yet I have the audacity to gasp that I am getting closer to 30? I’ve sat through funerals for kids who will never go to college. I have friends facing scary health concerns, or even walking that road with their parents. The older I get, the more stories I encounter that can’t be explained or spun into an optimistic story.

I think I’ve been wrong my whole life.

At 18, I was so certain that this world was good. That there was always a reason to hope. At 27, I’ve become more cynical in the way that sometimes terrible things happen that make no sense. I’ve learned that this side of heaven is not fair. This world can be full of deep sorrow and deep unfairness.

It’s scary to look forward at life, and know the longer you are on this side of heaven there is a biblical guarantee of more pain. So where does that leave me? Has the decision been made that this world is not good?

I think it’s funny on this side of heaven we act like no one has ever experienced life the way we experience it. No one has ever dealt with the issues we deal with. When in fact, the Bible is covered with people who walked in our shoes. Who had the same human feelings, the same struggles, the same heartaches.

Ecclesiastes came to mind often this year, and I read a book called Living Life Backwards. I can’t pretend these are original ideas, because sometimes the Lord provides the exact right book at the right time, and a lot of these opinions come from that book.

If you are not familiar with the Bible, Ecclesiastes goes back and forth between questioning the point of life, if we all eventually wither away. If we are all just a vapor in time? Frankly, I think it raises the questions many of us are too nervous to ask.

Something people avoid thinking about is that we will all die, and because of that fact, this world will always have an edge of sorrow to it. And you know what I believe? That sorrow we feel is because it was never supposed to be this way. Our hearts were made for eternity. We know the feeling of eternity even if we can’t comprehend it. We know deep down when horrible things happen, that it was never supposed to be this way. To me, that is evidence of the gospel. And that is why Jesus came. The book holds these two truths together well: that we will live, sorrow is inevitable, and because of that sorrow there can be deep, rich joy too. You can know deep joy because you have also known deep sorrow.

After thinking often and hard this year, this truth informs me that each day we wake up healthy, God is not done with us. It informs me that we are here on this side of heaven, at this exact time, for some reason bigger than us. It informs me that each day is a gift worth celebrating. This side of heaven is deeply broken. Sin and sorrow eventually touch everything. There is no reason to wallow in that. Your time, and, if you call yourself a Christian, your posture towards this world and the people in it is deeply valuable. These day to day, small interactions are what deeply matter on this side of heaven.

As much as this world is broken, God is still good. He is deeply near to the brokenhearted. I know that, because I’ve seen it in my own grief.

Great is Thy Faithfulness is a hymn that has always meant the world to me. I think about the generations that have sung of his faithfulness and it nearly brings me to my knees. Two summers ago, after losing my grandpa, my compass was rocked. My world was thrown from orbit. I didn’t want to talk to God. I didn’t want to lead YoungLife anymore. I didn’t want to pray. My roommate invited me to church, and I nearly said no. However, I knew I could sit there in silence. I knew I could go through the motions. I could fake it.

When the first chords of Great is Thy Faithfulness began in that service, I knew God had not left me. I knew he sat right in front of me, that he truly is so near to the brokenhearted. Because I remember that heartache so clearly, I also know how to recognize a small joy. I know how to see glimmers of God seeping into this broken world.

This side of heaven is not good. This side of heaven is full of sin and sorrow. Knowing this pain has made me more tenderhearted. It has made me more aware that each birthday is a gift. That each day is a gift. That health is a gift. That time with friends is a gift. In God’s kindness, there will also be joy. I may no longer believe that the world we live in is good, but I also believe God’s goodness breaks through the cracks of this broken world more often than we tend to notice.

In the words of Living Life Backwards, “Life is gift, not gain.”