See no Evil?

The life you are after is not just difficult to find, it is viciously opposed.  It is easier for us to discuss searching, engaging, understanding, pursuing, seeing, and even awakening.  It is easier because we can engage all of these parts of the journey on our own, at our own leisure, or our own level of motivation.  Acknowledging that we face an enemy is a little like the girl in the scary movie who suddenly realizes someone else is in the house.  Everything changes.  It is time to make this change on purpose.

In a world filled with beauty and hope, in a place of childlike trust where families love and give and live a life of generous sacrifice, it is difficult and sometimes feels a bit sacriligious to talk about evil.  It is in fact these very evidences of God’s nature that make it imperative that we talk frankly and directly about evil.  In his excellent book, Waking the Dead, John Eldredge proposes several tenets for laying ahold of the life we are created for.  One of them is this; know we are at war.

If we are not careful we can fall into the trap of believing that if we just took care of the needs of people, and got the imbalance balanced, all would be right with the world.  Our enemy is crafty enough to know how much we would like to believe this.  Our “happily ever after” mindset sometimes kicks in prematurely and we want our birthright to begin now.  We would love the Lion to lay down with the Lamb today.  The time is not here yet, so don’t throw away your Lion repellant just yet.

Our enemy knows enough to not overplay his hand most of the time.  Apathy, bitterness, judgment, are all effective weapons in his arsenal he can engage without ever showing his hand.  Life throws sufficient circumstances at us to keep us overwhelmed and disengaged.  We think we don’t have time, energy, or need to engage in the war.

A Warrior and A worshipper

Then we see a documentary on human trafficking (great job, Sower of Seeds), or a man in our neighborhood murders his wife and children and turns the weapon on himself.  Or we catch the news about the overwhelming mass murder going on in nations all over the world in the name of religion.  Something in us stirs and we begin to think that evil might have a face, and a personality.  It might even have an intentional agenda to destroy all that God loves.  We are at war.

On September 12, 2001 we woke up to a new world and a new way of seeing.  America as a nation seemed galvanized.  Not just angry, but alert and unified.  Our usually divided government gathered in unity and sang a song of patriotism.  Our collective population seemed intent on standing up and pulling together.  It just felt different.  Do you remember? It lasted about three months.  Then we began to drift off to sleep again. Today perhaps we are more divided than ever.  The opposition need not play his hand, as he has us playing against one another.

In this world of beauty and hope, when we see no evil we slide into apathy.  Because we were made for dominion and not apathy, the apathetic find someone or something to fight against and men begin to try to conquer one another.  It is the goodness of the world that makes it so important we acknowledge and withstand the evil.  Not disorganization, not imbalance, not injustice as a passive state; evil. Real evil.  The devil has not yet satisfied his agenda, and if we are passive or disengaged he is cool with that.  Try to stand up and fight for right.  Rescue a sex slave, feed the hungry, get involved and it will become clear;  the life we are created to live is opposed by a vicious enemy.

One last precaution.  The cause of this enemy is not the cause of a man or an organization, or a nation.  He opposes love and joy and, and kindness, and goodness and gentleness, and meekness, and mercy, and self control.  Anywhere he can sow the opposite of these attributes of God, he is at work, even if it is in your own heart.  Stand up and fight for the nature of God in your life today.  As we win this battle we can begin to invade the darkness all around, bringing light into the darkest places in the world.

Todays post in honor of Sower of Seeds.  Bringing light to very dark places.  Click on their name to check them out.