Part Two: Fall

But it’s all too evident we don’t experience shalom. Life is not as it is supposed to be. The Bible has an explanation for that: we are in rebellion from God. Like Adam and Eve in Genesis, we want to live life on our terms, and for our purposes. We don’t want God in the center of our life: maybe we don’t acknowledge him at all or want to keep him quietly on the sidelines. But when self is exchanged for God as the center, it’s not surprising that everything else is affected. Sin, brokenness, injustice, poverty, alienation, sickness and death are now part of our daily experience. We feel disconnected from God, self, others, and creation itself.

Your part in the story:

When Alexander Solzhenitsyn suffered the horrors of a Soviet gulag, he easily could have declared himself innocent in comparison to the evil he encountered. Instead, he learned in the concentration camp that “the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being.” The problems of this world are not simply “out there.” They are also “in here,” in each of us. We’ve all told lies, we’ve all taken something that wasn’t ours, we’ve all had thoughts that devalued others. The Bible makes no bones about it: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (Rom. 3:23). On what basis can we stand before a holy and perfect God, or hope for shalom?