DID ATLAS REALLY SHRUG?

Where were you when I laid the earth’s foundation?  Tell me, if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? Job 38:4-5

 

In the 1960’s, I read a novel that I thought would change my life. Atlas Shrugged by Russian-born atheistic author Ayn Rand chronicles our nation dissolving into total political and economic ruin, resulting in many prominent industrialists attempting to set up a separate society.  The title is derived from a conversation between two of the book’s characters who conclude that “the giant who holds the world on his shoulders” would indeed shrug if he could see what was happening in this Rand-built world. The novel was said to contain “elements of science fiction, romance and mystery,” which at the time, appealed to my not-yet-completely developed sense of self.

 

Clearly, I was a misguided youth! Rand’s own philosophy became known as “Objectivism,” advocating reason as the only means of acquiring knowledge, rejecting faith and religion entirely. Rand believed that one’s highest moral code grows out of doing what is best for one’s self. I wonder how I could have seen romance where no love existed, or mystery where facts took the place of emotions. Now I see the author’s attempt to indoctrinate her readers into her own selfish ideology (which she nearly did with me!). How could I have been so naïve?

 

Atlas Shrugged came to my mind suddenly this morning as I was reading the book of Job. In Chapter 28, God explains that He is God and Job is not.  I wish I had read these words before I read Atlas Shrugged! Ayn Rand is and always was a child of God. She just didn’t know it until it was too late. She lived and died not believing or understanding that God Himself gave her the very brain she used to devise her own anti-Godly thinking. God laid down every twist and turn in that woman’s life, just as He has with mine, and she had the same choices—free will— that I have had. Atlas never shrugged, Ms. Rand. God was the one holding the earth in His loving hands!

 

Father, I know that You love even those who do not believe in You. I pray that Your light will shine through their darkness. Amen