The world is better than we deserve it to be

It is common for people to ask: why are things so bad? Why is the world such a mess? Why is my life not the way I want it to be? For some, this is a reason to doubt God or at least to doubt God’s goodness.

Yet let me propose a different question that might help us be a little more balanced: why is the world not worse than it is? Considering that all the people who live in this world are sinners who are guilty before God and deserve incredible punishment, why is there so much good in the world?

It would be within God’s rights to simply wipe us all out. There were multiple times in history that God could well have done this, like with the golden calf incident in Exodus, or in the time of the evil kings of Israel. And when we consider our own hearts, we know that we also deserve terrible punishment from God.

Yet, even when we are sinful and undeserving, God provides so much that is good. As Jesus says in Matthew 5:45, God sends rain and sunshine even on the evil. As Paul reminds us in Romans 5, while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. All we have is grace, whether we are looking at our salvation or just the provision we receive from our good God, day by day.

We need to notice the good gifts we have from God instead of only complaining when things don’t work the way we want. There is so much blessing to see if only we would notice. The feeling of a cool breeze on a warm day, the fact that we have friends and family members that care for us, the reality than most of us have enough food to eat and a place to sleep: all of these are blessings far beyond anything we deserve.

In the end, it is not justice that we long for. True justice would mean that we are wiped out and suffer for eternity. No, what we need is grace. We need God to show us mercy and give us what we do not deserve. And that is what God offers in so many ways. The world is far better than what we deserve it to be.