Broken

My home is filled with broken things. I came in from mowing the lawn this afternoon to get a drink of water and the water filter that hangs off our sink faucet began to leak and dropped off. Which isn't surprising since the faucet itself leaked for a year and was just replaced. Which isn't surprising since the sink leaked until I plugged the little hole that somehow got poked through the stainless steel. Which isn't particularly stainless since it is rusting slightly in a large number of places. Which really doesn't matter since the cabinet is sits in has a lot of water damage so the floor is rotted through. Which I replaced with old stick-on tile which was left over from replacing the rotten kitchen floor. Which sits over the crawl space that is filled with all that collapsing insulation that is supposed to be stuffed into the kitchen floor joists. Which tends to knock the duct work down when it falls, opening the kitchen A/C vents to the damp crawl space air. Which is damp because of the water that leaks through the corners of the cinder block wall and pools in feted, muddy puddles. Which was caused by the lack of gutters that were missing for years. Which we took off because of the rotted roof and siding. Which is just one of a countless number of things that were, or are, broken.

When the filter came off in my hands this afternoon I reacted with sinful anger. I couldn't believe another thing broke. I had taken the last two days off work simply to fix broken things. The brakes in both cars needed to be replaced. The drywall in two rooms is half way repaired after the pipe broke. I couldn't believe another thing broke. So I went outside and wandered around the yard looking at all the landscaping problems that needed to be fixed, the dead and dieing trees and shrubs, the pile of old logs that need to go to the dump, etc. And I began to quiz myself about my anger and realized that I had the irrational expectation that things should work.

Expecting things to work is upside down. Everything is broken in this world. It is a biblical principle that is so blatantly obvious that there is even a law of physics to name it - the law of Entropy. Entropy is the level of disorder and every closed system's entropy increases unless energy is added to the system. To expect anything to not be broken is simply irrational. Everything is broken in both the world of machines and humans. Computers are broken, government is broken, toilets are broken, families are broken, weed-whackers are broken, the environment is broken, disc brakes are broken, hearts are broken.

I shouldn't be angry when something is broken. Broken is it's natural state. I should be astonished when something works. When I put the bread down into the toaster and toasted bread actually pops up and it isn't on fire - I should be amazed. The toaster working is a violation of the laws of physics and is a miraculous gift from God. When I reconcile with a friend after a conflict - I should see it in the same category as Jesus walking on the water: How can that be? When I repent of sinful anger and experience God's forgiveness and my heart return to a place of peace, I should be keenly aware that what occurred was completely supernatural. Seeing the world for what it is, all broken, opens my eyes to seeing God's generous kindness to humanity when things actually work - and it brings my expectations into line with reality.