EVOLUTION

EVOLUTION

                My granddad was a welder; my dad a millwright, and my sons – an electrician and engineer.  Are we climbing up or down the ladder of work?!  (just a joke for my E&I friends.)  Socially we evolve, hoping each succeeding generation will climb a little higher.

                A Hindu thinks it is a repeating cycle.  Linear is the view of orthodox Christians, with eternity on either end of time?!  A secularist sees it as a progression, from a big bang to our current thang.  Are we going around in circles, no more than dust in the wind, or moving toward a destination?

                Spiritually? Are we standing on the shoulders of those before us?  Or, are we jumping from the bank back into the mud-hole?  Ancient Israel would cycle around, every few generations:  rebellion, retribution, repentance, restoration… around and around. (or, sin, servitude, suffering, supplication, salvation, satisfaction?!)  History has seen revivals and awakenings come and go.  Maybe the picture is more like a sine wave oscillating above and below the base line of humanity?

                Sadly, our very hearts, in the words of the hymn, are “prone to wander”.  Are we “pressing on the upward way”?  Or, are we sliding down the “Highway to Hell”?!  If one is not evolving, then he is degenerating.  So, are we swimming upstream?

                The direction of the whole is determined by the parts.  Society is the sum of the individuals within it.  Certainly, leaders have a powerful influence, disproportionately, in where we evolve.  Many would wag that we are spinning downward out of control, not spiraling upwardly.  It is difficult to disagree with them?!

                I remember a episode of Star Trek, “Transfigurations”, in which a rescued, injured alien was mutating into the next stage of his species' existence, a pure energy form.  There are Eastern religions that express similar thoughts (likely where the writer got the idea?).  But, in Holy Scripture, the idea of the seed becoming something magnificently different is expressed by Paul!

                “There will be a day…” is crooned by Jeremy Camp, echoing the earnest longing of many a sensitive soul tired of this fallen world.  “…when the burdens of this place, will be no more, we'll see Jesus face to face…” is the hope held out by brother Camp!  The “New World”, to which the Pilgrims escaped, does not begin to compare with the “New Jerusalem”!

                Our world is dying.  God, alone, is the stable, solid, steady One.  All else is degrading and degenerating and deteriorating.  Thankfully, He is also Savior.  God, have mercy on us.