only evil all the time

This morning, reading from Genesis 5 and 6, I was struck by a phrase that explains a lot.

The pertinent passage is Genesis 6 starting at verse 5: "The Lord saw how great the wickedness of the human race had become on the earth, and that every inclination of the thoughts of the human heart was only evil all the time. The Lord regretted that he had made human beings on the earth, and his heart was deeply troubled."

Only evil all the time – it explains 762 murders in Chicago in 2016, it explains the horror of Aleppo, it explains the victimization of drug addicts by criminal syndicates, it explains human trafficking. So many things can only explained by the word "evil," and all of them trace their origins back to the very beginning.

That's what the knowledge of good and evil, that forbidden fruit so coveted by Eve, brought us. It has corrupted our hearts so that, without God, every inclination of the thoughts of my heart are only evil all the time.

God hated it – he regretted ever making us. He committed himself and his son to an epic battle with evil that will not end until the earth itself is remade. That promise is seen in the rest of this passage. These two chapters are the start of the story of Noah, whose safe passage through the flood aboard the ark foreshadows the salvation that comes to all of us. 

It's good for me to be reminded that, absent from the redeeming work of Jesus, I'm not a good person. These bad things I still sometimes do are the dying struggles of the evil man I used to be, a bad person that I am slowly getting the better of. The good that I increasingly do, the love I show to my family, the service I give my church, the broken heart I feel for the abused of this world – those good things are all the proof anyone should need that in God there is hope for the most wretched sinner.

This change that God is working in me is the same change that I am called to work in the world. Just as each day I become less the old man and more like Jesus, each day I and all others like me are called to restore this world to what God planned it to be. That, not my job or my own empire, is my purpose here. 

It's good to be reminded of that at the start of the year.