My son has just asked if he can write to our local MP. I won’t share with you what he wanted to write about – I will leave that between him and our local representative. But he wanted to raise an issue he is concerned about and I was more than happy to accommodate him. Sending an email is not very difficult.

What I didn’t want to tell him was my thoughts on how successful his email will be. If our local MP manages to do anything at all about the issue in question, I will be pleasantly surprised. Suffice to say, I doubt much will be done and I suspect he has bigger fish to fry. Having said that, Andy Burnham is currently on a drive to deal with life’s little annoyances, and I certainly think my son’s particular point of concern is likely to be supported relatively widely. But I am not holding my breath for much more than an email back that says very little indeed.

I can only hope my expectations are bucked, but it is a sad lesson to learn so young. Sometimes the powers that be are not very interested in helping and, much of the time, even where they do want to help, they often can’t do very much for you. I am reminded of this scene from the sitcom Frasier, most notably Marty’s line, ‘you’re 40 years old and it’s time you learnt something: the system ain’t perfect, sometimes the bad guy wins, and all those things you thought would be around to help you – the courts and the police department – well, sometimes they’re just not there when you need them. So, you can either let it eat a hole in your stomach or file it away under the heading, “sometimes life sucks”‘.

The sad truth is, Marty is right. The system isn’t perfect and the things you thought would be there to help you when you need them sometimes just aren’t. It is true for police, fire brigades and, yes, even locally elected MPs. Sometimes things just don’t work like they ought.

I am minded to draw two biblical lessons here. First, ‘this is just the way the world is’ is not only true, it is the sad product of sin. Things don’t work as they ought because sin has ruined the world. Nothing works as it ought because we – the people who set the systems up – don’t work as we ought. The impact of sin on our world is there for all to see. This really is the way the world is and sometimes you have to accept, because of sin, life just sucks.

Second, however, is that is not the end of the story. I am so glad that a God exists who has not just left things that way. We have a God is not like our MPs or “the system”. We have a God who, when we go to him with our petitions and requests, not only hears us, but actually seeks to do something about them. Admittedly, it may not always be what we want done, but he does always act in our best interests. Better yet, he hasn’t just said ‘life sucks and that’s the way it is’. He has sent his own son to deal with the way the world is and has promised us a day when, because of his son, he will make it all new so that it does work exactly as he intended. Sin may have ruined everything, but God sees it too and will make it right.

Sometimes the system just doesn’t work; but we have a God who is going to tear down the system so that it will work as it ought. In the meantime, we must operate within the system as it currently is. We wait for a response from our MP with bated breath.