Earth (Remix) [Feat. God the Maker]

I receive news updates from CNN on my phone in the form of push notifications. Rarely are these updates "happy." Yesterday, a Sikh temple was shot up, multiple people dead. A week or two ago, a man burst into a movie theater in Colorado and shot a whole bunch of people. Even in my hometown today, the top headlines include "Fatal stabbing in Perry County," "Two found dead in Louisville standoff," and "Paris police arrest man on child porn charges." Wildfires are currently torching Oklahoma, unemployment rates rose in July, and droughts are drying up crops in the Midwest. There was even a person struck by lightning and killed at a NASCAR race in Pennsylvania yesterday. All of this is just the current news in the United States of America. Add in the Syrian debacle unfolding currently, the tropical storm coming in on Honduras, and a Pakistani attack on NATO vehicles (just to name a few events), and one thing is clear to see: something is broken.

In Genesis 1, we see that God made everything. When it says that God made everything, that doesn't mean that He made everything in a shoddy, screwed-up way. No, when God made the universe, He "saw everything He had made, and behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31, ESV). Not just "aiight", not just "decent". He didn't even think that Creation was just "good;" no, Creation was "very good."

So, if God made everything, and said it was all splendid, how the heck did we end up with a world that looks like my opening paragraph? What happened? I'll tell you: Genesis 3.

In Genesis 3, Adam and Eve sinned for the first time in human history. They decided that they knew better than God, and were proven incorrect. Thus, with sin in the world, everything got messed up. Pain, evil, and darkness entered the world. Corruption and brokenness spread out from Adam and Eve and went into not just every person (since there weren't other people yet), but the entire earth. Romans 8:19-23 shows plainly the state that we find not only ourselves, but all of Creation in:

"For the creation waits with eager longing for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be set free from its bondage to corruption and obtain the freedom of the glory of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now. And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies." -Romans 8:19-23, ESV

Creation is groaning in anticipation for God to restore everything back to the way that it was. It says that the intensity of which all around us desires to be restored is comparable to a woman in labor. That, my friends, is an object or being that desperately wants to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Just like a pregnant woman, we and all of Creation are suffering right now. We have bodies that age and break and hurt and get oily and need food and water and shelter and numerous other issues; Creation has earthquakes and death and global warming and numerous other issues. All of this, though, will fade.

Just as a new mother's painful memories fade at the joy found in holding the newborn, all of Creation (us included) will be ecstatic at the new way of things when God remakes all. I will no longer need contacts, have a slightly messed up left ankle or even a tendency to develop tension headaches. Earth will not have hurricanes, volcanoes or disease-carrying mosquitoes. All will be made new through God, and I personally cannot wait for that to occur.

"For I will create a new heaven and a new earth;the past events will not be remembered or come to mind."

-Isaiah 65:17, HCSB