Last month when I was flying into L.A., guess what I saw?
Hi, I’m Joni Eareckson Tada and I bet you guessed it. I saw smog! Oh sure, I know the weather is cool and usually we don’t have much smog this time of year, but when I looked out the window of the plane, yuk, I cringed. The city was covered in an unusually heavy, thick, brown cloud. Yep, no matter how many emission controls they put on cars, in California sometimes it's smog year-round. But here’s the thing: When we got off the plane and drove up the freeway an hour later, you could barely see it. We didn’t even notice it.
I thought of this the other day when I read something by Dr. David Wells. He wrote, “What is striking about our culture today is that its corruption is not simply at the edges; it is not simply found among academics who are bent upon overturning all moral principles, or among vicious street gangs, or vendors of pornography. What is striking is that this corruption is not located in small pockets here and there, but it is spread like a dense fog throughout society.” Wow! He's right. He’s got it. And sometimes, like seeing smog from ground level, we hardly notice it. We don’t see it. We tend to forget that we live under a thick layer of moral corruption. We are no longer shocked by it, as we would be from a 35,000 feet up-looking-down perspective: at ground level, we just go about breathing our culture in and out without hardly noticing. “It is what it is,” we say.
But I have noticed — and maybe you have, too — that Christians are more alert than ever before. We are beginning to understand that this age is ripe with opportunity. I’ve noticed more Christians than ever are open to discussing the problems. “What can we do? Where can we turn? How can we make a difference?” they say. Many more Christians are understanding that now is not the time to draw back and sequester ourselves away from the world. No, now is the time to shine light, shake salt, and tell people that Jesus Christ is our hope, and show them that the Bible offers answers (with even the media bemoaning today’s divorce rates and the way it’s impacting our children hey, maybe the Ten Commandments aren’t as old-fashioned after all!). In contrast to the despair around us, you and I can proclaim an absolute morality — there are things that are right and wrong; there are things that are good and evil, and helpful and hurtful: “Don’t commit adultery” — families will be ripped apart. “Don’t steal” — society will crumble if you do. “Don’t lie” — it’ll damage everything from families to the economy if we do. Look, a moral compass like this is good and people are beginning to recognize it! What’s more, in contrast to the vague spiritual longings people seem to have, we can remind them that our hearts were formed by God and we will be restless until we find our rest in Him. And I guess we could even modify Proverbs 14, verse 34 where it says, “Righteousness exalts a nation, but sin [will become a suffocating smog to] any people.”
I chose to speak to you about this today, because this is the sort of thing our ministry will be touching on in all of our Cause4Life internship programs in the coming year. And we are putting the call out to young people far and wide to come and serve with Joni and Friends as interns, where we’ll be looking at how we can apply the Word of God to influence our culture—especially as it concerns the dark world of bioethics, physician-assisted suicide, euthanasia, the triage of healthcare dollars, and so much more. If you are studying toward a healthcare major or a sociology major or a career in disability, you will definitely want to intern with us at Joni and Friends. For more info about our Cause4Life internships, go to my radio page today at joniandfriends.org.
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