Ever since we were little, when we’d wander out into our backyards and wish we could fly like the birds overhead, every one of us has had to wrestle with the difference between the way things are and the way we want them to be.

We didn’t create ourselves; we were born with certain physical characteristics that both empower and limit us. The same is true of our human nature overall. And eventually, tension arises because we are capable of desiring things that are beyond our grasp.

From the 6-year-old boy desperately trying to fly, to the 60-year-old man desperately running for president of the United States, every human struggles to conquer the way things are when they don’t line up with how he wants them to be.

I think it is, in some way, built right into our nature as creatures who have dominion over the earth. I’m sure Adam had an idea of how the Garden of Eden should look, and it wasn’t going to get there if he just left it on its own.

We are created to have desires independent of our surroundings, and when those desires clash with our surroundings, we naturally do our best to change our surroundings to suit us. It’s why humans build houses, drive cars, and construct skyscrapers.

And apart from sin, it’s a powerful force for good.

But the phrase “apart from sin” reveals my hand. This tendency to subject the way things are to the way we want them to be gets quite scary when we realize that sin perverts our desires. It is built right into our nature as sinful creatures to exalt ourselves, and that means tearing others down and rejecting God when either of them gets in the way of our personal will. It’s why humans engage in slavery, start world wars, and profess atheism.

And it explains much of today’s insanity.

Transgenderism is fundamentally driven by a desire to subject the way things are to the way we want them to be. As I’ve observed before, the ideology is predicated on the idea that your biological sex and your inner sense of gender identity are separable, and when they conflict, the latter trumps the former.

So let’s step back for a second.

Our biological sex is an integral part of our created nature—”the way things are.” Our inner sense of gender identity is intended to be inseparable from that created nature. But when our inner sense doesn’t align with God’s will, that is an effect of the Fall, and so “the way we think things ought to be” ultimately flows from a perverted desire.

And so we clearly see the pattern when we mangle our bodies to align with our wishes—it is our desire triumphing over God’s reality.

Homosexual unions are a desperate attempt to subject God’s created reality of marriage to the perverted desires of fallen humans. From the beginning, God created men male and female, and ordained that a man should become one flesh with his wife.

All of us exist within that created paradigm, and when our desires stray from God’s plan, the appropriate response is to subject our passions to God’s truth. But the world assumes just the opposite—they subject God to their passions and desires. Accordingly, they bend the institution of marriage to accommodate those who are suffering from misguided passions.

And they need to be affirmed in their choice to defy God’s reality as they degrade their bodies, pollute their souls, and defile God’s institution of marriage. But when we play make-believe marriage, it doesn’t make reality unreal; it only harms us in the long run.

Ultimately, it’s not surprising that this tendency to subject reality to desire has manifested itself in a campaign to redefine the basis of everything—truth. As humans corrupted by sin, we often desire things that simply don’t work in God’s world or square with the truth He’s planted innately in us.

And hard, immovable facts don’t budge no matter how loudly we complain. So we are now seeing efforts everywhere to simply re-define what is true or objective.

Why bother with the endless struggle of ramming perverted desires through a world structured according to God’s truth, when you could just decide that God’s truth is all relative anyway? All moral claims are simply preferences. Religion is a private, personal affair that ought to stay out of politics and the public square.

Relativism is the ultimate triumph of our will over external reality.

Except it doesn’t work.

No matter how many cross-sex hormones you absorb, you will never change to the opposite sex. No matter how many times the Supreme Court may call it marriage, homosexual relationships will never qualify. No matter how many times you matter-of-factly claim (oh, the irony) that truth is relative, Truth will never change to fit your preferences.

As Isaiah reminds us, all men are grass and their glory is like flowers, both of which quickly perish. But God’s Word stands forever (Isaiah 40:7-8).

Now, we should fervently pray that God would open people’s eyes so they would see how foolish it is to elevate their own desires over his created reality, but this also requires action: Christians are called to be bold defenders of Christ’s morality. Looking at it from a certain perspective, I think that the truth which addresses this particular bundle of lies is the very truth every Christian is called to proclaim.

Ultimately, it’s a question of worship.

When you worship something or someone, you will bend everything else in your life to accommodate the object of your worship. If every knee were to bow, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, there would be no room for placing our desires above His truth.

He would be preeminent in every aspect of our lives.

We’re already called to proclaim this.

And the sorry state of our culture just gives us extra reason to do so. So let’s step into a new year remembering that while everyone around us seems busy worshiping themselves and bending everything else toward their desires, we are proclaiming the Lord who is the rightful recipient of our worship.

And He offers salvation from even the most wicked of today’s lies.