"The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing"
-Edmund Burke
Evil is rampant in our world today. Let me be more specific, evil is rampant in my life at times. The sin problem that all of us humans have has led to a world that contains many unfair and unjust things.
Tuesday nights I help out with disadvantaged youth who have experienced many of these issues head on. Some have been abused, some have become addicted to substance or sex, and some don't know who their parents are...all at around the age of 14-17. This flags as an incredible injustice to me. A minor victory for evil has occurred in my eyes. Thankfully, I know, as a believer, that good has won the overall match and that while evil may have its hey day here on Earth, it is good that will eventually overcome through the cross of Christ.
Still I wonder often,"does it have to be this way?". Yes, I get it, there is sin in the world and there will always be bad things happening as long as this is the case. I strongly, strongly, strongly believe though that Christians are capable of not only going to heaven and being with God, but bringing a little of heaven down into Earth. It saddens me when I hear people who are satisfied with the way things are. Even if they feel like things should be different, they are too unwilling to make changes themselves so that we can make bigger changes on a whole.
I really believe as those Christians are on a mission, not as employees of God, but as recipients of an undeserved gift. When we receive a gift the magnitude of grace how are we to keep it to ourselves?? Take my own life, a resident in my dorm stole my Ipod last semester, he has been found out and all that by the police, but I still don't have it back. It is hard for me to just forgive him (hey, it was a 250 dollar song machine), but I think I could do it. Imagine that by a billion. God's grace is nowhere near something we can even comprehend fully, yet we are able to partake of it free of charge. Stunningly, we all (including me) have a tendency to keep it to ourselves. If we discovered the cure for cancer would we keep that to ourselves?? Of course not! Part of defeating evil is going to be sharing about the grace we've been given.
A theme of Christ's I see in the Gospels is that He often just goes. He doesn't take into consideration what ramifications will take place, rather He goes where He is not supposed to. Lepers, adulterers, tax collectors, Christ was all about sharing the light of the Good News because of its power. Paul was the same way, he experienced something huge enough for a major transformation and ended up sharing his gift with others, changing not only those first Christians, but all Christians even today.
Take time this week to pray about what you can do to stop the spread of evil in our world. It is a daunting task that will take the unification of the body of Christ,but we can do it....we WILL do it.
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I hear what you are saying. It is hard to be satisfied with how people treat each other, especially Christians. It is so easy for us to let Jesus do all the work and just sit and wait for Him to return with His Kingdom. We forget that there is so much we can do now to help those around us in the world. I think that we all have that sense of dissatisfaction in us as Christians and we just can't let ourselves ignore it - let it be something that drives us to work towards. I agree with you that it is sad, yet we also cannot forget that we all are guilty of it. We may feel that we are never satisfied with the world, but what about the days when we just let the little bad things happen because we just don't feel like dealing with it? It is hard, but whether we like it or not we all take part in this mindset. We can't let ourselves become judgmental of our fellow brothers and sisters if they fall into this trap. It is just something that we all need to watch out for - knowing that the battle is already won in Jesus does not mean we can be lazy here on earth.
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