Spiritual Entropy

Carlo Rovelli, an Italian theoretical physicist, wrote the following about entropy:

The difference between past and future does not lie in the elementary laws of motion; it does not reside in the deep grammar of nature. It is the natural disordering that leads to gradually less particular, less special situations. – The Order of Time. (2018). Carlo Rovelli.

My mother understood entropy better than any physicist or engineer. Every spring and every fall, Mom did top-to-bottom, side-to-side cleaning, clearing, creating, and curating our home and all the stuff in it, including us kids! My wife is the same way.

Dad, to his credit during these semi-annual campaigns, did repairs, remodeling, and general rummaging about under Mom’s direction – this part didn’t stick to me.

Twice each year, she fought the good fight against entropy, the decay of matter and energy in the universe to an ultimate state of inert uniformity per the second law of thermodynamics. She won all the battles except for the biological ones. The kids grew up, Mom and Dad grew old, and eventually, entropy won.

This battle against the velocity of entropy means more than a clean home; it is our commitment to refreshing that which was born vibrant within us. This is a lifetime activity. Nevertheless, in this world, some of us will decay quickly; all will succumb eventually. Still, the fight is worth the effort. As Christians, we have a kind of spiritual entropy against which we must rally, not by physical activity but through quiet solitude with our Savior.

Our fight against entropy is different from that of the world, for we were made alive in Christ (Ephesians 2:5). Our fight is against spiritual entropy. Our spiritual life does not decay to some inert uniformity, but it can move from fervent to sedentary. We begin our spiritual race with energetic energy. Jesus lives in us and infuses us with dynamic godliness. However, that first burst of energy is insufficient to complete our race successfully.

We know from James 4:8, “Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.” To be alive in Christ, we must draw near to God through prayer, contemplation, reading our Bibles, and putting into action what we learn. This is how we battle spiritual entropy. Unlike the entropy in physics, our lives in Christ are active now and will be fully experienced once the shackles of this world are thrown off, and we see our Savior face-to-face.

For now, we have not yet fully escaped from spiritual entropy. This fallen world tries to return us back to decay. We need to get that worldly dust off of our feet! Though dust reminds me of Mom, it is Jesus who taught us the importance of cleaning the world off of our feet. Jesus said to Peter, “Those who have had a bath need only to wash their feet; their whole body is clean…“

As a Christian, the ways of this old world should have no hold on you. You are able to overcome spiritual entropy “…because greater is he that is in you, than he that is in the world.” (1 John 4:4 NIV)

Photo by Kevin Noble on Unsplash

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