‘Unfragmented’
. . . all the king’s horses and all the king’s men
Couldn’t put Humpty together again.
Oh . . . ! That beautiful bone china bowl—one fumble, the crash to the floor—and, well . . . that one’s gone! Been there? The treasured heirloom piece—can grieve that one!
I know. It’s quite a mind reach to go from a broken china bowl to a broken world. But consider. The china bowl broken into hundreds or thousands of shards cannot be gathered up and put back together. Even if by the power of sentiment one was compelled to try, it could never be what it was originally. Nor, apart from a source beyond our human abilities, can our broken world. While gratefully there are those with a heart for good and right in today’s world, our news waves show so many filled with hate and rage who are ready to crush even the already shattered shards of our world.
Brokenness
I recently read Michael Snyder’s article titled ‘Broken America’.[1] He addressed the all-out values war seriously underway in the USA with “tens of millions of people trying to pull America one way, and . . . tens of millions . . . [pulling] it the exact opposite way.” He wrote, “In all my years, I have never seen so much strife, discord, bitterness and resentment in this country. Everyone can see what is happening, but nobody can seem to stop it.”[2]
When we consider the brokenness, the fragmentation deep in the human spirit that has issued into the “strife, discord, bitterness, and resentment”; when we consider the origin of such brokenness, the result of turning away from God to human (our own) agendas, the disregard for the holiness of God, and for all things holy—His Word, His principles—and yes, even Creator-granted life itself. All came from His gracious hand; all a gift—to be lived out for His glory.
What can be done when the brokenness, the fragmentation is this massive, this deep? How did a nation come to such strife that some are calling another ‘civil war’?[3] Of course, as has been asked, is any war ‘civil’? When a nation is divided essentially in half on the major direction it should be going, with myriads of factions and fractures on each of the opposing sides, well . . . where is it going? When more than just the rhetoric, but the essential objectives of ideology and of policy are at a 180, and the determination is set on both sides, what may we expect? When the level of civil and moral discourse is at an all-time low, where does it go from here?
What can we ponder, thinking from the Creator’s perspective? What does He see, what does He know (of course, we know He knows—all), what are His thoughts, and going forward what will we understand from His operations in the affairs of our human family? What will we understand when He unveils His ultimate Kingdom?
I have tried in the early posts on this site to ‘accentuate the positive’,[4] to reflect with you a vision of the Creator-designed life. One reason I have focused on shalom is that I have a profound conviction, based on the holy Scriptures, that our alignment to our Creator’s plan means the abundant life—beginning here and to be known in its fullness when His plan is consummated.
The vision: from the fragmented to wholeness
A couple of posts ago, I included the following passage from Dunning’s Grace, Faith and Holiness. I there wrote, “The author wrote of the damage, the distortion that came to the relationships the human family knew in the first garden. Dunning wrote of the imago, the image of God in humankind, as being ‘identified as a fourfold relation: to God, to other persons, to the earth, and to self.’” The author showed that each of these relationships was disrupted in humankind’s Fall.
When I included this passage, I purposefully did not include the final sentence. I want you to see the whole passage again here with its concluding sentence. In my view, this passage is loaded, and it’s final statement is powerful. Scripturally based, this text portion speaks not only of the Maker’s wholeness intent for our human family, but also of the scope of relationships, of our human ‘fragmentedness’ originating from the Fall, but then of God’s answer, His design to ‘un-fragment’ us! Ponder:
These four relationships [noted in this passage] constitute what the Hebrew word shalom (peace) signifies. It means far more than the absence of conflict. It involves the harmony of an individual with himself, with nature, with the world of people, and clearly with God. In his description of the state of integrity, Elmer Martens beautifully describes this situation: “But in Eden, as the opening chapters of Genesis describe it, that wholeness exists. Man is in tune with God. Adam and Eve are unashamed with each other; they live in harmony with themselves as well as with animals. Not only their needs but their desires are fully met. Here is the perfect state.”[5]
Thus shalom best describes the Edenic, pre-Fall state; but even more, it is the summary term that encompasses the goal toward which all God’s redemptive acts are directed. He desires to transform the present fragmented state into healing and wholeness. Holiness is wholeness and is embodied in the beautiful shalom of God’s plan for His people.[6]
“Fragmented state into healing and wholeness.”
God’s call to holiness is a call to wholeness. Can the meaning get richer?
Design straight from the Father’s heart!
P.S. In relation to this post, I invite you to ponder the “Prayer of St. Francis of Assissi” on the home page.
Find this post meaningful? I’d love for you to PIN IT!
[1] Accessed 31 March 2017 at http://themostimportantnews.com/archives/broken-america . Michael Snyder is an attorney who today is an analyst of current events. I am not with this reference necessarily endorsing all his perspectives. I did find this article perceptive to our times.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Snyder wrote of this.
[4] For this phrase I am indebted to H. Ray Dunning, Grace, Faith and Holiness (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press of Kansas City, 1988), p. 485.
[5] Elmer Martens, God’s Design (Grand Rapids: Baker Book House, 1981), 28; quoted in Dunning, Grace, Faith, and Holiness, p. 486.
[6] Dunning, Grace, Faith and Holiness, p. 486.
