Touched this morning by the mournful but beautiful sounds of the classic gospel singing group, The Winans, pleading in song for the simple “days of yea and nay when we could plainly see the way.” When we knew our place. When we knew what was right and what was wrong. But now, “caught in the midst of complexity we search for yea and nay.” I understand. It is so tempting to want to return to a time when values were clear and people were in general agreement about what was right and what was wrong and simple decency. It’s a romantic notion. Only… there never was such a time. The world has been spiraling out of the orbit of “right” since the fall of man, and according to the Scripture it’s not going to get better. The good news is it was never intended to. Instead, it is spiraling to a conclusion, “a long-range plan in which everything would be brought together and summed up in [Christ], everything in deepest heaven, everything on planet earth” (Ephesians 1:10). So I take solace in the idea that, like birth pangs, the present distress means a better world, even better than the one that existed in the days of yea and nay, is being born.
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