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3 Ways Christians Should Respond to the Horror of a Broken World

The news is filled with horror. There is no other way to say it. It is horror.

The horror of a broken world where evil is real.

Let me suggest some ways Christians should respond.

First, pray. 

Pray for hurting families and broken communities that have had their children ripped from them. Pray for churches to minister to the hurting. Pray for people not to lose heart. And, yes, pray for Jesus to come back and set this broken world right.

Some time ago I tweeted about the tragic suicide of a member of my extended family, ending my post with the words, “Maranatha. Come quickly, Lord Jesus.” Someone asked me, “Why did you say that? How are those things connected?” The answer is that ultimately we need Jesus to return and set this world right — we eagerly wait in hope for the return of our Savior. That’s why Christians pray for Jesus’ soon return.

We believe that right now our broken world rebels against its rightful King — and evil people do evil things. The innocent suffer. People are hurt and people hurt each other. People kill and are killed. The world is broken and needs its Maker to fix it.

So we Christians pray as Jesus taught us: “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

So we pray for the hurting now and for Jesus to come back and end all the hurt — to dry every eye.

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Second, don’t be afraid to say that the world is horribly broken.  

Speak about its broken condition. This brokenness is all around us. Evil is real — bad people are doing horrible things. The world really is broken.

In Subversive Kingdom, I wrote:

Look around. Our world is broken. I’m not talking about the “world” in terms of nature (although creation, too, bears the marks of sin’s blemish and decay). I’m talking about the “world” comprised of the people, structures and systems that make up society — the moral patterns, beliefs and behaviors that result in things like unfair business practices, racism, extreme poverty, dishonest government, dirty politics, family breakdown, cheating, stealing, oppression of the weak and so many other distressors and defilers… 

It stinks.
It’s bad.
It’s not right.
It’s broken.

And in homes and hospitals every day of the week, at courthouses and gravesides everywhere in the world, people of all spiritual makes and models suffer from it — from a world that toils along in hopeless disrepair. 

The brokenness of the world is on full display this day. Don’t be afraid to talk about it. All the silly “positive thinking religion” collapses on days like this. This world is broken, and only God has the ultimate fix.