Isaiah 45:8
Shower, O heavens, from above, and let the skies rain down righteousness; let the earth open, that salvation may sprout forth, and let it cause righteousness to spring up also; I the LORD have created it.
In a world damaged by sin, it is sometimes easy to forget that sin, though normal, is never natural. The natural state of affairs in our world tends toward goodness. We don’t have to do anything to make the rain fall, the plants grow, or living things multiply. Life and goodness are built in. It’s the way the world is made. As C. S. Lewis’ famous devil, Uncle Screwtape, complains to the junior tempter Wormwood about God, “He’s a hedonist at heart. All those fasts and vigils and stakes and crosses are only a facade. Or only like foam on the seashore. Out at sea, out in His sea, there is pleasure, and more pleasure. He makes no secret of it; at His right hand are “pleasures for evermore.” Ugh! I don’t think He has the least inkling of that high and austere mystery to which we rise in the Miserific Vision. He’s vulgar, Wormwood. He has a bourgeois mind. He’s filled his world with pleasures. There are things for humans to do all day long without his minding in the least — sleeping, washing, eating, drinking, making love, playing, praying, working. Everything has to be twisted before it’s any use to us. We fight under cruel disadvantages.” Remember Screwtape’s complaint the next time he tries to lie to you and say the Creator and his Creation are terrible things. He knows better and he desperately wants to keep you from knowing it too.
