ethic paralysis and courageous hope.

Few days ago, I experienced something so heavy, dark, and gloomy.
I felt as if the world has succumbed to the persistent and resilient force of dark.
As a Christian, I always knew the doctrine of human depravity. But that day, I was having one uncomfortable epiphany of how grave the sins are in this world. I was sitting in my office feeling paralyzed and completely defeated.

I am a avid news consumer. I love reading news, and I can do this all day. The facts around the world and people's perception of the world are always intriguing and fascinating to me. Also God had allowed me to have friends from all over the world. This has exposed me to various world views, political perspectives, and cultural differences.

One deadly side effect of being connected to the world / world news is that you get to have a candid look at humanity. And, it looks so ugly.

I had a late night conversation with Korean friends in my department a night before. We started to discuss about problems in Korea. It was one difficult conversation to sit through. It was overwhelmingly evident that the society I grew up is deeply flawed. Social stratification, human rights violation, biased justice system, economic disparity, corruption, human trafficking, prostitution, dilapidated moral values, rampant usage of pornography, dysfunctional education system, and the list goes on and on and on and on and on.

Even more disheartening fact is that all these problems are so common in the other countries as well. It is ubiquitous, universal, omnipresent, and outrageously prevalent! If I were an agnostic or atheist, I would have gladly embraced the ideology of fatalism. (or narcissistic hedonism).

But in the midst of all of our brokenness, God provided a beacon of hope that I can cling onto. Jesus Christ.

John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life."

I repented that day that I bought into Satan's lie that there is no hope in this world. I had to repent for denying God's redeeming power. I had to repent because I limited what God can do.
And I put my faith in God that he will raise up disciples of Jesus Christ and the Church of Jesus Christ to restore what has lost.