Despair and Hope

I’ve come to a conclusion. Some of you will think it’s pretty profound. Humanity is evil and fallen and wicked. Please try to contain your gasps. Okay I know that’s not profound, but sometimes when we think of evil and humanity being fallen we think of places we are not in contact with. Sometimes we also seem to forget to what extent humanity has fallen. Luckily whenever we seem to forget that the world is completely and utterly evil someone is there to remind us. Here is how I was reminded this week.
A good friend and I were walking back to campus to watch August Rush. We were talking and joking and were looking forward to the movie that neither of us had seen. While we were walking a car slowed to a stop on our right side. A little girl in the backseat smiled and waved at my friend and I. This made us both smile and we both waved back. It is amazing how the simple kind gesture of being smiled at can make you feel. Or just being waved at. That moment of basking in a little girl’s innocence was ended abruptly when the man in the front passenger seat, who I can only assume to be the girl’s father, rolled down the window and shouted at us. “She’s fucking 10 you fucking perverts” Sorry for the curse words, but I wanted you to get the full effect of what he said. My smile quickly turned to despair. Is the world in such a state that when older males wave and smile at a little girl that someone can only assume that you are trying to seduce her? I do not blame the father. He obviously loved his daughter very much and was only responding to the evil that we have all been exposed to our whole lives. Is our view of men so distorted that our minds can only go here? Is there anything good or pure in the world anymore. Is there any hope left?
If it was not for Jesus there would be nothing, but despair. What would be the point? Suicide would seem sensible if it were not for the love and grace of Jesus. There would be no hope. Praise God for being our hope in this obviously hopeless world.