The Floor is Cracking

Everything was new downstairs when we moved into the new place at the end of last summer. I savored it's newness, knowing, by now, that, no matter how careful I am, it won't stay new forever, and, in fact, probably not for long. Sure enough, the newness is beginning to wear off. The floor that was brand new now has a few cracks in it. I believe it's termed "ordinary wear and tear. "

That everything around us is deteriorating should cause us to make some conclusions. One of the things we should understand is outlined in Romans 8:19-22 "The creation waits in eager expectation for the sons of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration (to futility - NASB), not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the glorious freedom of the children of God. We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time..." (NIV84) An interesting concept... That the world, once perfect, is now decaying - groaning, subject to futility...

We have emotional, intense reactions to this... we get angry, or find ourselves fighting depression as we see these things we work so hard to get falling apart.

Another conclusion we should come to is that this IS unusual - not how things are supposed to be... (!!!) This isn't good. (We know that when God finished creation He said it was good - Very Good. Genesis 1 and 2) We need to realize and understand that God did NOT make the world the way it is today! Things didn't decay and fall apart and deteriorate when He first made them... That began after the first people God made rebelled against the only instruction He gave them. He even warned them that to disobey would cause death. (Genesis 2 and 3)

So... to be down, dismayed, distressed, depressed, bothered by, and/or frustrated by the deterioration we see everywhere in our world is a natural response or reaction, and it should lead us to the conclusion that this can't be right - this can't be the way it was meant to be...