She sounded defeated: “I try so hard to do what’s right but the bad keeps on winning. What’s the point if it doesn’t make a difference?” In the past, I would have countered with some pious platitude sprinkled with Bible quotes. This wasn’t a time for that response so I said: “I’m sorry things look that way, and what you’re feeling is a hard place to be.”
The world we live in can make us feel like my friend. It seems what little influence or power to change things we might have had has dwindled down to zero. Technology, a crazy economic system, social isolation, and however AI plays out, all seem like parts of a dehumanizing conspiracy, as though we might actually be just a commodity used by the Matrix.
The truth is, we have real power. We are made in the image of God (Genesis 1:26), a little lower than angels and crowned with glory (Psalm 8:5). Everything you do and say has a ripple effect. You can make people sad or happy, you can lift them up or bring them down. You can help and heal or hurt and harm. You can ignore or pay attention. No one can take that power from you. You alone control what you do with it.
What we experience in life is the aggregate of individual choices. That cause-and-effect reality can’t be undone by legislation, policy, even religion. We reap what we sow. Or, to use a different metaphor, a host can provide good conditions for a party (God creates a good world), but the partygoers (we human beings) can crash it or make it a great time. It’s so much about what each of us brings to the party!
Jesus emphasized this truth in the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew 5:14-16). The more people who use their power for good, the better the world will be and the less we’ll all stumble through it. What kind of choices have you been making? What are you bringing to the party? I urged my friend to consider that she wasn’t alone and that something in the positive column was better than nothing. Happily, after her down moment she is back up shining her light, and the darkness can’t overcome it.
Dr. Carl Grosse is an ordained pastor and the author of Faith Along the Way, a weekly reflection for KnoxTNToday that encourages readers to discover God’s presence in everyday life and share His love with others.
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