Atomised

 "You shall be a fugitive and a wanderer upon the earth" Genesis 4:13.

I've gained some insight into David's words about meditating on what counts in my older years. Some of my best thoughts for the day come in that calm quiet before sleep, when I'm allowed to escape the "burble of business" and consider deeper things.

Last night was a good example of this. After reflecting on some deep impressions that had arisen amidst the day, I got up again to write down the following from my musings:

The way of Cain.

"This 'way' is not only to reject what is overwhelmingly evident to you in respect to the divine, but then to seek to annihilate any expression of this in yourself, others, and the world in general".

Ponder that for a moment, because it tells you everything you need to know about the 21st century.

It isn't that we are just seeing some spates of ungodliness or unbelief in our times - it's far worse than that.

Let me illustrate.

Today I commenced a marvellous book - the latest from Dr Michael Denton, entitled 'The Miracle of Man'. The author shows how the 'scientific' revolution of the 16th century appeared to shatter the anthropocentric view of the medieval world, and how this process culminated, in respects to its presumably 'unshakable' foundations in the publishing of Darwin's 'Origin of the Species' in 1859. The shocking truth, however, was that even as these notions were being laid, a very different conclusion via thoroughly empirical observations concerning everything from elemental structures such as atomic bias to the elegant and extraordinary workings of our various essential physical capacities - was taking place, bringing us today to a culmination which points directly at exquisite and unmistakable workmanship to facilitate the birthing of particularly human life.

What this points to is that there are just two avenues of "magic" open to the world - one where we swallow the lie that everything, no matter how precisely defined, has derived by total accident, or that everything has been brought about with astonishing intent.

Cain truly represents the modern world - this is the manner of point Paul is making in the early chapters of Romans.

Like him, we now live in a realm where we are eye to eye with the miraculous - creation is replete with the truth, and we have encountered it everywhere. The awful reality of our times is that, in spite of this, we have responded like Cain. We are indeed a world that murders the majesty of the message and then seeks to behave as if all is well in the prison of our terrible denial.

Since the mid eighteenth century, our 'modern' world has been on a trajectory of self annihilation, and we are reaching the end-point of that process.

Thankfully, mercifully, the splendour is still there, but we need to be steered away from our blindness to truly awaken to its majestic truth.

May God help us to help some to see the breath-taking expanse of the marvels that have come from the Lord's hand.

We are simply fools until we are undone from the nightmare of our evil.

Christ's redemption alone makes us whole.