The world is a tangle of problems.

I often work and write at any number of coffeehouses. I don’t visit these shops because I like coffee. Hate the stuff. But a cup of chai or an icy frozen hot chocolate stimulates the brain sufficiently.

Most coffee shops have “regulars” who treat the place like their office. So do I quite often. Yet I also move around from local shops to any number of Starbucks across the Fox Valley.

While not actively eavesdropping, one still does hear bits of earnest conversation. A week ago a pair of women next to me were consulting on a job search in which one of them was engaged. Hearing that affirmative dialogue on the part of the advisor and the job candidate’s self-examination was a case study in “figuring it out” in real-time.

Then there are the conversations you don’t overhear. But you can still tell the talk is serious in one way or another. Occasionally I’ll pass by people talking at a table and smile. Then I ask, “Well, have you solved the world’s problems yet?”

The question is typically so unexpected it draws a laugh from people, and that’s somewhat how it is intended: Let’s have a laugh at the absurdity of it.

Typically, the answers are just as humorous. “We’re trying,” is a common response.

I asked the same question to a table of women as my wife and I were on our way out of an outdoor bar space. They were talking intensely at the moment and my question caught them off guard. Still, they embraced the opportunity to share what they had been talking about––their experience as teachers for example––to point out they were “doing what they can.”

That’s all I really want people to think about. Solving the world’s problems is itself an absurd proposition. That will never happen. Even the claim that Jesus is coming back to fix it all is a misconception. In truth, scripture holds out for the day that we all do our part in making the world a “better place.” Only then can the so-called “return of Christ” take place. It’s not a literal event at all. Neither was the promise made by Jesus to “tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days” a literal prediction. The Lord’s Prayer confirms the same thing. “Our Father in heaven…your Kingdom come, your will be done…on earth as it is in heaven.” That’s up to us.

But the religious authorities of the era in which Jesus threatened to tear down the temple and rebuild it in three days did take him literally. They mocked his proposition and later conspired to get him killed to prove their authority over all challengers.

In other words, they sought to solve the world’s problems by killing off the truth that was hitting them in the face. The same thing is happening today.

I’m not here to proselytize that Jesus is the “only answer.” Readers of this and my blog at Genesisfix.com know better than that. What I do want to communicate is that solving the world’s problems isn’t a matter of shunting it off to someone else, or even counting on some future figure about whom scripture prophesies to return and create a “new heaven and a new earth.” That’s reverse literalism.

The real way to fix the world’s problems is by looking at them with real eyes, in a real contest. We’re called as rational human beings to protect the world for future generations.

I will say that the present generation of leaders, the people that have led the rape of the environment and economic coercion of the masses have done quite the opposite. To make matters worse, the allies in this destruction claim to be in deep favor with God. That’s not the right kind of pride. That is human arrogance.

That is why I think the next generation, the much-maligned “millennials” hold so much promise for the future. They seem eager to dispense with traditional or conventional views of the human condition. Race and religion, nationality and economic status, sexual orientation or family position are not the defining factors in how this generation regards and treats each other.

I truly think that if I asked people of this coming generation if they have solved the world’s problems, they might quietly turn to me and say, “We’re ready for our chance.” In fact, I’ve done that a few times, talked to millennials at coffee shops and asked that same question. They typically don’t laugh it off. They honestly look at me as if I’m serious.

And that, my friends, is the Right Kind of Pride.