Why is there so much evil in the world?
07.06.2025 06:18
We serve as mirrors to one another, but we do not perceive our own projection in reflection. Jesus does, though, and His Grace and wisdom serve as the one optical medium that distorts the dispersion into a sensible image:
This interaction grieved me. But it also made me think hard. As I began to pray ‘Lord have mercy on America - open the hearts and minds of these people to your Spirit’ I feel like the Spirit spoke to me, in a way He sometimes does - I suddenly felt the pang of irony as these verses entered my mind:
Because those of us who are evil don’t think we are. We think we’re good. We’re the heroes, remember?
““But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, “‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.””
I was going to quote this to her - as a threat, really. Hence, the Spirit says to me (via the voice of my conscience) ‘are you not doing the same’? Indeed, I intended to. I wanted Jesus’s words to say ‘raca!’ (‘empty-head!’) for me…
One of my rules I try to abide by is ‘don’t comment unless you know who you’re talking to’. So I check the profile:
I realised that I was the Pharisee again, as usual. I was halfway to ‘thank you that I am not like her’. Oh, the Irony. I am exactly the same. Then another verse struck like the double-edged sword it is:
““Two men went up into the temple to pray, one a Pharisee and the other a tax collector. The Pharisee, standing by himself, prayed thus: ‘God, I thank you that I am not like other men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector. I fast twice a week; I give tithes of all that I get.’ But the tax collector, standing far off, would not even lift up his eyes to heaven, but beat his breast, saying, ‘God, be merciful to me, a sinner!’ I tell you, this man went down to his house justified, rather than the other. For everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.””
And so I was led to this contemplation. Evil intensifies as we fight fire with fire - as we return it. Like constructive interference, the black light of Wrong achieves laser-like focus as it stimulates its own emission by amplification of its own energy.
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Matthew 5:21-22 ESV
Well, whatever king she’s referring to must not love me at all, it seems. In an effort to avoid hypocrisy and inform this person I am not an enemy I leave the reply below. After all, I trained in hospitals where we often called nurses ‘sister’. I liked that.
Here’s a comment I got today, from someone I’d never come across, under my little answer to How did the USA end up with such a farce of a Supreme Court?
Pocket is shutting down, so I switched to a self-hosted alternative - Android Authority
““You have heard that it was said to those of old, ‘You shall not murder; and whoever murders will be liable to judgment.’ But I say to you that everyone who is angry with his brother will be liable to judgment; whoever insults his brother will be liable to the council; and whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”
It seemed to have an effect I didn’t really intend. I did mean to admonish her, I guess, but only in the way that I would hope someone like my friend Michelle Johns might admonish me with scriptures I quote (just to be clear, I can’t remember Michelle doing that, but I would hope she and others would, if necessary). Anyway, I was dismayed:
Matthew 11:16-19 ESV
Luke 18:10-14 ESV
There’s always someone to blame. Someone’s gonna get crucified for all this, and it ain’t gonna be me. I’m the good guy.
Lord have mercy on me, a sinner. There is so much evil in the world because there is so little repentance. There is so much pride. There is so great a desire to be the Supreme Court of All Things in every human heart.
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We didn’t start the fire. She made me eat the fruit. They created us.
Wisdom speaks the Word that my ear does not want to hear. Wisdom shows me the plank in my own eye, and it is blindingly painful. ‘Why do you call me Good?’, Wisdom says - as if I were qualified to judge…