If good people live in this world as spectators, the Bad Guys are going to win.
If God-fearing people refuse to engage in this world because they are too busy longing for Christ’s return, the Bad Guys are going to win.
If people who love Jesus don’t roll up their sleeves and disrupt the status quo, the Bad Guys are going to win. Jesus was all about disruption.
If we who live in relative prosperity in the world ignore suffering around us, the Bad Guys are going to win.
If believers in God who consider life sacred don’t want to help alleviate human suffering, God is not going to do it for us. The Bad Guys are going to win.
LISTEN.
God may be all-powerful, but God put humans in charge of the earth, and we humans ran it off the rails. God has not promised to fix it all for us.
“What about Romans 15:13? ‘May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.’ See? We just need to trust in God. We don’t need to worry about the Bad Guys winning. God will win.”
This is one of many verses that Western Christians use to excuse inaction – as if all we need to do is sit back and bask in joy and peace and trust and hope, because God is going to take care of everything.
But the life of Jesus (the one we say we seek to emulate) was nothing if not engaged. He got his hands dirty, touching lepers; he readily forfeited his reputation, eating with “sinners”; he took on the powerful in pursuit of justice for the oppressed. Jesus gave his life to the work of love.
In fact (as I’ve written many times), Jesus told his followers in no uncertain terms that the way to eternal joy is through serving those in need.
As appealing as it may be to view the world as a spiritual battle (the spirit of darkness vs. the spirit of light), humans are the ones doing the damage.
Humans are amassing enormous fortunes as millions starve. Humans are exploiting the bodies of the oppressed to keep them oppressed. Humans are giving the go-ahead for other humans to carry out ethnic cleansing, declare war on helpless populations, and ravage the earth’s resources.
We’re not meant to sit and wait for the angels to finish off the demons. We shouldn’t rest until we have confronted those humans who are, by their actions and choices, perpetuating suffering.
If we don’t, the Bad Guys are going to win.
FURTHER READING:
Silly thoughts about demons, hard questions about prayer
Are there “strong Christian women” on Capitol Hill?
My will be done: an annotated Lord’s Prayer
The (not so) secret message of the Good Samaritan
FEATURED IMAGE: “Lego Bad Guy” by Joe Shlabotnik is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 2.0.
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