Time and again I have felt dismay at what seems a prevailing readiness to accept the status quo, that and/or a sense of powerlessness to change things or make a real difference for the better. Occasional attempts to challenge this approach are met with expressions that suggest I'm speaking Chinese!...the idea simply doesn't compute. (This is a generalisation of course and while I dare to say it is true in many/most cases, it is certainly not true of all).
At times I've become quite preoccupied with trying to solve the Turkish mindset, "Why are things the way they are here?", "Why do people seem to so readily accept what to me is unacceptable?"... It's a risky business critiquing actions across a culture because no matter how well we think we've got things figured out, invariably there remains a great deal that we've not understood or even considered. Nevertheless I can't help but contrast the drive within me, and generally speaking within my home culture, to always be looking for opportunities to make things better. What is that about? Why the difference?
I was reading something recently that said this sense of needing to contribute positively to our world and to make a change for good should characterise the Christian experience. We have a God who has clearly communicated His dissatisfaction with much of what goes on in our fallen world and His work throughout history has been about redeeming it and us. Jesus came because everything was all wrong, and His life, death and resurrection are integral to God's work of reclaiming and restoring...
Active and vigilant involvement in making our world better, safer and more just, are a normal and natural part of the call to align ourselves with a God, who said before any of us did, that "Everything is NOT okay." Just as He is grieved by all that is broken in the world, so should we be, and our normal days should be about joining with Him in making things better.
It's a tension for the believer, called to see the worlds' brokenness - more than others might, and yet also called the love this world more than others do. So as we love the world as it is, our love drives us to champion its change into something better. Wow, that's gotta need a whole lot of the grace of God!
So, I haven't solved the questions I opened with, but in the meantime I know that there's a whole lot needs changing in me; but maybe while He's changing me, I might also get to partner with Him in being an agent of change for good in some small ways during our time here. I pray that will be the case.
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