It has always been a challenge for me to restrain my strong desire to shape the world, those near and nearby, into my image of what they should be or be doing. Reading “The Challenge of Jesus” this morning N. T. Wright, as he spoke of crossbearers, offered good counsel for me.
Shaping our world is never for a Christian a matter of going out arrogantly thinking we can just get on with the job, reorganizing the world according to some model that we have in mind. It is a matter of sharing and bearing the pain and the puzzlement of the world so that the crucified love of God in Christ may be brought to bear healingly upon the world at exactly that point.