Health

Let your ways be known upon earth, your saving health among all nations. 

 - From Psalm 67

About twenty-five hundred years ago, with the population of the earth much less than it is today, it was a great aspiration to imagine all of the nations of the world knowing about God's saving health. 

We used to say that, even if non-believers practiced God's directives from Scripture, they would be happier, more contented, healthier, more prosperous, more successful. They would be more charitable, more selfless, more attentive to the needs of others. 

I still think there's something to that. 

There's an irrational fear that a world perfectly influenced by the God of the Bible would be bad for humanity. But how can this be so . . . 

• Heal the sick
• Do good to others
• Turn the other cheek
• Be good stewards of the earth
• House the homeless
• Welcome aliens into your communities
• Give at least a tenth of your produce to advancing all of these practices
• Be faithful to one another, serve each other
• Make a priority of the needs of children, especially children of single parents, and orpans
• Make a priority of the needs of the elderly, especially the widowed

Okay I'll stop right here and dwell on those last two for a moment. 

If care for the children (orphans) and the elderly (widows) is God's urgent priority - and it should be. We need look no further than our own household to determine God's will for this moment. - then it would follow that societies that downplay the needs of the roots and branches of our lives could be considered the furthest from God's will. 

If babies and children are not the most wonderful blessing to us; If we consider them inconvenient, a nuisance, an expense. If we believe that we "deserve" our own happiness and that comes before all others, including children . . . if we normalize child trafficking and pedophilia, so that ultimately children become simple a thing to entertain us until we're tired of them . . . if we abort the unborn and abandon the post-born . . . if we ignore and patronize them . . . then it may be said that our society has abandoned God as well, that it has aborted Good itself, and that it has plunged into the opposite of Good, which is Evil. 

The situation regarding our elders is similar. We're coming off a three-year "pandemic" period, which in its earliest days had some governors sending covid-positive people into nursing homes, resulting in the premature deaths of many of the same. They committed this atrocity, and got away with it. The elderly are ignored, mistreated, disrespected, and lonely. 

This is our culture. We treat our two most vulnerable and precious humans: our very youngest, and our very oldest, as though they don't count, in exact opposition to the Lord's constant pleas in both Testaments. Our society is far removed from what's eternally Good. 

 . . . which brings us full circle. We'd better get out there and make sure more people know about God's saving health. The health of our human family seems to be rather important.