Been on a bit of news fast and focusing on Proverbs lately, so I haven’t weighed in on the Las Vegas tragedy yet. It was sad, awful, wasteful, pointless. I’ve been praying for those families. So much heartache.
Mister Rogers of all people, once said something really useful about coping with tragedy, “My mother would say to me, ‘Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.’ To this day, especially in times of disaster, I remember my mother’s words, and I am always comforted by realizing that there are still so many helpers — so many caring people in this world.”
I call that, “diving for pearls in the cesspool.” It is wisdom. Find the good.
Philippians 4:8 reminds us, “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” That can be really challenging in the midst of darkness and evil, but that’s when it’s ten times more important to be obedient to those words. Find the pearls in the cesspool.
I want to focus for a moment on internet culture, on what I’ll call the collective human reaction. We people tend to go through shock, horror, soon become obsessed with every news detail……and than a powerful need to know “why” sets in. Whatever went wrong, we want to know how to prevent it in the future, who to blame, how to make sure it never happens again. A lot of conspiracy theories and social justice campaigns are born of this phenomenon. “Never again,” becomes the rallying cry before we’ve even diagnosed the problem properly.
Our media (and some politicians and celebrities) have gotten so good at exploiting that vulnerability in us and running with it. They like to infuse everything with drama, fear, social justice, blame, keep everyone all distressed and glued to the news. So gun control, anti-depressant bans, racism, conspiracy theories, Trump supporters, non Trump supporters, politics, everything gets thrown into the soup of mediated reality, right when our brains are scrambling so hard to understand “why.”
Somebody smart once said, “the devil’s greatest accomplishment has been convincing us all he doesn’t exist.” I really appreciate that saying because we’re living in this time of subjective morality, moral ambiguity, where “there are no bad people just good people who do bad things,” and everything is supposed to have a perfectly good explanation based entirely on our own ability to reason.
That will eventually drive you nuts because evil is always irrational.
Evil doesn’t care one bit about our capacity to reason. Evil doesn’t make any sense to us because it’s a void, an abyss. “The enemy comes only to steal, kill, and destroy.” In the year 2017 we’re always trying to rationalize away evil, weave excuses like defense attorneys for the devil himself, as if we ourselves can just conquer evil itself by banning guns or instituting more early childhood intervention programs and prescribing more antidepressants. Whatever this “thing” is, we can find a way to fix it, cure it, prevent it from ever happening again.
The answer to “why” this happened is unsatisfying, it leaves us feeling somewhat powerless, and it is scary, because it is simply, because a man chose to do evil. That is a choice we all have, one we can hardly imagine ever making, one we don’t like to admit, and yet it sits right there, so close, haunting us all the time. 1 Peter 5:8, “Be sober, be vigilant; because your adversary the devil, as a roaring lion, walketh about, seeking whom he may devour.”
In the absence of Light there is dark. In the absence of the intentional decision to do good, there is only evil. There is no empty place of nothingness, no lukewarm, there are only two options, choosing the Light or choosing the darkness. Evil is the default, it is the “natural” state, it is what exists in the absence of Light, what happens when we don’t chose to do good.
This happened because someone chose evil. That is the why.
For much of my life I didn’t believe in evil, I was confused and anxious when bad things happened, and the world just made no sense. I knew we needed the Lord, but I didn’t truly get it, I didn’t believe in evil and the devil was just kind of like a metaphor for…..something. The Lord placed His hand over my eyes for a reason, so I am quite grateful for that, but that same kind of spiritual blindness now afflicts us as a secular world, as a culture trying to reject faith with little or no understanding of the void we are actually creating in its place.
The fact that we are all capable of choosing great evil and inflicting it on others is a truth often wrapped in layers of denial, one most of us prefer not to admit or to even think about. We like to keep a sharp line in the sand between ourselves and the “other people” who do bad things, often investing all our faith in the power of human empathy or reason and our own personal desire to “be good,” at least “good” in our own eyes.
Human empathy and our capacity to reason are beautiful things, but if they alone had the power to save us we’d all be living in paradise now and everyone would be singing Kumbaya. Empathy and reason alone have failed to protect us for thousands of years. We’ve had some good victories, but we simply lack the power to overcome evil under our own steam. That is why Christ died for us.
Like many people, I was once comfortably encased in my own goodness, having little or no real awareness of Who I actually owed that goodness too, Who was responsible for it, why it was there. I thought it was innate, biological, just who we were as people. It sounds almost funny to say that today, naive, foolish, because much like true love’s kiss, the Lord woke me up one day and it turns out I actually do have a dark side. A dark side that is transformed into a beautiful thing in the hands of the Great Potter and pressed into service for Him, but a dark side just the same. I now no longer have any illusions about the truth of who we are as people and what we are all capable of given the right circumstances.
Evil is a real thing in the world. If we don’t deliberately and intentionally chose good, we choose evil and evil chooses us, and often a whole lot of innocent people get hurt and sometimes killed in the process.
It just is what it is and it will never make sense to us because it is entropy, chaos, what the world looks like devoid of the Lord who actually spoke the light into existence.“The thief cometh not, but for to steal, and to kill, and to destroy: I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” John 10:10
Nightwind addressed a similar issue in a post I rather liked, called “the motive of the Las Vegas shooting.” In it there is mention of a classic Western film Barquero. I really appreciated that point. Tis true.
pamelaparizo said:
IB, I used to fret over some of the evil, evil things I was reading. So evil that it seriously grieved me. That’s why God got a hold of me and said, “Don’t fret….” (Psalms 37). I realized that I was dwelling too much on the negative, which when we do that, we don’t dwell on Him, delight ourselves in Him. He also reminded me that when he slays evil, He will do it by the BRIGHTNESS of His coming. Jesus just has to show up, and it’s done. So, now, I look for the positive response, the good that is the flip side of those evil things.
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lovelifeandgod said:
Now if only we could right a law against the devil’s works! That’ll show him. 🙂 That’s kind of what I hear when I listen to some people talk about these tragedies. Make it illegal to break the law. If only we could learn that the desire to do evil begins in the heart, and there’s nothing stopping it but grace.
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patrickhawthorne01 said:
Yep…the devil has done an excellent job of convincing the world he does not exist by first convincing them that God does not exist.
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~M said:
“diving for pearls in the cesspool.” I really like that! 😉
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The Night Wind said:
Thank you for the link. It’s also often been said that you can learn more about human nature from a good Western than all the sociology classes combined…
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Tricia said:
Amen IB and very well said.
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lynnabbottstudios said:
Excellent! ❤️
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thewayonline said:
Without Jesus Christ, man is capable of anything, and only limited by his resources. Imagine if Stephen Paddock had access to a Nuclear Weapon for instance….😱
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insanitybytes22 said:
I hear you. As scary as this all can be, there’s really nothing new under the sun. We’ve had some horrible atrocities all through history. The media likes to hype things, so this becomes the “worst crime in our country” and “what is the world coming to.” But if we go back and do some research however, we’ve got many terrible crimes happening in 1927, 1858, often involving bombs, fires, that killed hundreds of innocent people. It’s a bit morbid, but it does help me to keep some perspective and not buy into the fear and hype. 🙂
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thewayonline said:
262 million people have been killed in the last century by their own governments with democide. As Christians we can hold fast to Gods promises of a peace that passes all understanding and even in grave persecution we can have faith and joy. This is the beauty of the Gospel for Christians…because we are in the world but not of it….
As for this world, and the sin infested mind of mad men, we know they only stand testimony for the dire need humanity has for a personal Savior and moral law. Jesus Christ is the answer, yet the Bible tells us of what the future holds for us but it also says to have no fear of it. For Christians, life’s only going to get better if we die.
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insanitybytes22 said:
“For Christians, life’s only going to get better if we die.”
Yes, but let us remember “He didn’t die just to get us into heaven but to get a bit of heaven into us.” We’re bringing a bit of heaven into the world, “making His invisible kingdom, visible.” 🙂
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thewayonline said:
Truth. But we will never change the prophecies that are laid out in Revelations concerning what will unfold here on earth. There is going to be terrible suffering, especially for Christians, (90,000Christians were martyred last year and another 600,000 were kept from practicing their faith – making them the most persecuted religion for the second year in a row) – now in the meantime evangelizing the lost is imperative it is our forever work…but I am not disillusioned to what lies ahead. But that’s ok…someone said it’s better to be out in the storm walking on water with Jesus, than safe in the boat without him. ❤️
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Clyde Herrin said:
There are no good people, just bad people who do good things.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! Amen. I really like that. It’s more realistic.
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authorstephanieparkermckean said:
You are so right. So many people refute evil and the idea of evil…which helps it flourish. God bless you for your wisdom and courage.
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craftysurf said:
I’ve been thinking about this a lot too. I wondered- if there’s an agape we strive for, an unconditional love we try to emulate in Jesus, there could be the polar opposite that manifests in someone as unconditional hate and utter despair. This manifestation believes the entropy is so extensive that there is no end to it, no future balance, that their personal reality becomes “the Universe” they CAN control. They may even delude themselves into thinking they are helping to “save” others from this perceived chaos. A soul can turn to despair rapidly, that’s why the Bible stresses for us to build each other up constantly, ‘cause ya never know…..
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insanitybytes22 said:
Amen, that’s well said.
We really do need to build each other up, to reach out, to help one another keep the faith.
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Mel Wild said:
I agree with your Phil.4:8 approach. Let’s applaud the heroes of Las Vegas who risked their lives for others. There is great evil in the world, but as Gandalf told Frodo in the mines of Moriah:
Frodo: “I wish the ring had never come to me. I wish none of this had happened.”
Gandalf: “So do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us. There are other forces at work in this world Frodo, besides the will of evil.”
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lovelifeandgod said:
Saw a Facebook post earlier that reminded me of this post. It was a gif of a cat, captioned, “It’s not that he’s evil, he just lacks empathy and he goes into a dissociative state and commits atrocities.” It really made me laugh; it’s so reflective of our culture’s perception of evil.
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insanitybytes22 said:
Ha! That’s brilliant. Really sums up our culture well. 🙂
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Citizen Tom said:
Timely post.
That requires some very special gear.
When some guy machine guns people for no apparent reason, like as not he does not care what other people think.
Except to determine who else might have been involved, the motive may not much matter. What ultimately led to the crime is that the killer was indifferent to the people he killed. He killed because their deaths served his purpose. Maybe he just thought the misery he caused amusing.
At times like this it is best to focus on heroes. Pity the police. They have to put themselves in that guy’s head.
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