EVIL IS NOT GOOD

 

Happy New Year, friends and family.  One of my New Year’s resolutions is to get back to things that I enjoy…pleasures that have somehow not been part of my life the last few years as I’ve said goodbye to people I love.  I think part of the grieving process is that we move away from the things that make us feel good…because it somehow feels disrespectful to enjoy life when so many have lost the ability to do so.  But I’m making a choice in the New Year to honor my dad, my mom, my brother Richard and my “son” Sampson by moving away from grieving for them and missing them towards celebrating that they are part of the reason I am a creative human being.  Dad taught me to love words and language.  Mom taught me to love music and beautiful things.  Richard taught me to look for the good in people.  And Sampson taught me about the search and the struggle to find a purpose and a place in life.  All of those combined have given me life experiences that make me love music, writing, photography, crafting and reading, and I’ve done way too little of each of them for the past four years.  But I declare that the years of mourning are over (for now).  I know that more loss will be coming to my life.  I’m at an age now where every day brings news of the death of someone I knew (either in “real” life or in the form of “celebrity”) and I understand that my eternity in heaven will be here sooner than I can imagine.

On that note, I want to declare that some of what I write will not be what the world calls “good news”.  While I am a person who believes in filling my life with “positive thoughts”, I’m also a person who believes that real growth often comes in what the world considers the negatives…in the storms…in the fires…in the trials.  I do not shy away from the “tough speech” because I believe it’s the speech that ALSO motivates us to good works.  I’m not afraid to look back at my failures and shortcomings, because they are some of the best lessons in my life, and if I forget to look at them, I’m doomed to repeat my failures.

I’m studying the book of Isaiah right now during my personal Bible study time.  By studying, I basically read through a few chapters…I mark every mention of God…I underline every “instruction” or “command” that affects my behavior or my thoughts…I tend to highlight in bright colors those “promises” that make me “feel good”….but I refuse to ignore the “woe to’s” or the “warnings” that God uses to direct our paths.  And I feel like I live in a world now that wants to pretend that “God of Love” means “God of good feelings and letting anyone do whatever they want to do.”  And that just isn’t the God Who reveals Himself in the Scriptures.

So I find myself now living in a world where everything that’s been considered “evil” in the past is now considered “good”…and it’s a world that continues to encourage people to think they can be their own god.  The very first sin in the Bible happened because satan tempted Eve with the thought, “If you eat it YOU WILL BE JUST LIKE GOD.”  That was his sin…satan’s sin…the true original sin.  It was the desire to decide what was best for oneself without letting anyone else tell you what you can or can’t do.

And guess what that original sin of PRIDE and “deciding for oneself” has brought us?  It’s brought us mothers murdering their unborn child BECAUSE ITS BEST FOR THE MOTHER.  It’s brought us adults killing other adults for things from anger…to a false definition of love.  It’s brought us people CHOOSING to kill themselves so they don’t have to go through pain and suffering.  It’s brought us children killing children for a cell phone…or a pair of tennis shoes…because it’s “what I wanted.”  It’s brought us immoral “sins” that are now considered “acceptable”…and named those who agree with God to be “haters.”  It’s turned the Christian into a hate-monger.  It’s given us a government that wants no input from Christians…and people who think doing things God’s way is the worst way to do it.

But it doesn’t take a long look through the Old Testament to realize that godly leadership of a government has consequences for a whole nation.  Over and over we read of kings in the Old Testament who follow God and their kingdoms prosper.  But at some point, it seems, the power and prosperity go to their heads and they stop doing things God’s way…and their kingdom perishes. 

That means THROUGHOUT HISTORY those who have done things God’s way have prospered and those who have not have failed.  Talk about a reason to look back at failures…or successes.  How is it possible that 2015 years after Christ walked on earth that we continue to repeat the mistakes of those who lived a thousand years before Christ and through all the years since Christ?

So my “Good News” in all of this is that we need to remember that while we’re preaching love, and positive thinking, and “don’t look back”…we need to also be preaching TRUTH.  There WILL be a day of accounting.  Can you imagine standing next to someone you “loved” and hearing them say, “But no one told me I had to do that.  I thought I was just supposed to be living to be nice and be happy.”  We must teach that GOOD is GOOD and EVIL is EVIL in a world that has it all mixed up.  And we can’t teach that if we just smile and love each other and never speak the truth in love.

I encourage you to take the road less traveled…to make the uncomfortable stand…to preach the truth in love…to call sin what it is…and in the midst of all of that to LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, LOVE your neighbor!  We need to get back to the basics…that TRUTH is TRUTH and is not determined by culture or circumstances.