Good morning!
Welcome to your morning coffee! May our Heavenly Father help us to focus on what He is asking of us. Father teach us how to live together, how to love each other, how to turn our eyes from the darkness of the world around us, and live in your light. We can do nothing without you. In the name of your son Jesus please make your Will clear to us in all things, and then help us to obey it! Amen.
Your Morning Song: "Untitled Hymn (Come to Jesus)" by Chris Rice
Your Morning Scripture: Romans 12:9-21 (v. 21)
Do not be overcome by evil,
but overcome evil with good.
...
Over the last few years, both on the West Coast and in the Midwest, I've been hearing a similar thought come up again and again from different brothers and sisters in Christ. Everything just feels so dark. No matter how you get the news, the bad stories seem more like an avalanche of evil, and the good news like the sun on a rainy day, just glimpses of light. And in our own personal lives it is easy to be overwhelmed with sickness, struggle, burden, and death. We live in an evil world broken by sin.
How shall we respond to a world that seems to be getting darker? How shall we respond when our own communities are stricken with the same evil we see on the news or on social media? How should we respond to evil?
Paul, guided by God, says, "with good."
It is easy to be overcome by evil. It is easy to fall into despair. But God's command remains. Overcome evil with good. The verse above, verse twenty-one, is the recap for the section that starts with verse nine. And if you'd like to read that, it will certainly help give some specific examples of what Paul is referring to when he says, "good." But ultimately, "good" should be understood as God's children denying their own desires and agendas, and re-forming their lives, with the help of the Spirit, to God's Will.
And God is not in the habit of making His Will vague, or hard to understand. It is clear, but it is in the Bible. But many of us would rather make God's Will a thing of mystery instead of doing what we're supposed to do, eat the Bible.
Our response to evil matters. We should respond to evil in the world, in our communities, and in our families with good. We should not ignore the evil around us. But we should not despair because of it, or respond in kind. Our response should come out of a place of trust in our Heavenly Father. And so, because He is in control, our response to evil of any kind should be to respond in opposite, and with eagerness, with peace, and with gracious, merciful joy (God's joy that He shares with those who obey Him, His children).
My father used this example with me once, and it's stuck with me ever since. Make your box holy. Whatever you can do, whoever you have relationships with, be holy. Don't worry about what you cannot control, and who will not listen to you. Just make your area of influence holy. Dedicate it and yourself to God, and let everything else go.
So perhaps this is something you've done as well. Or perhaps you needed to hear this. Either way, go back to verse nine and see what specifics Paul has to say about what is "good." And double check yourself, or find helpful, if challenging, answers to the question of how we should respond to evil.
May we be people who only concern ourselves with what God is asking us to do, and how we can best obey. If we entrust ourselves, our families, our jobs, our communities, and our world to God, then we will be guarded by His peace until His victory is completed and evil will be gone beyond even memory.
Make your box holy!
