We work very hard, sometimes, at being evil. It is not our whole story, but it is part of our story. It is something that lingers, lurks in the shadows, and haunts us – that thing that is deep that ignores what we know and considers irrelevant what we believe, if only for a moment – that moment of over-inflated self-confidence, underutilized self-awareness, and misplaced trust when we focus on ourselves and our own stubborn desires. That is when outward flattery is in danger of becoming self-deception, when we start believing our own press reports, and start visualizing the universe revolving around our own narcissist proclivities.
We lie around plotting evil.
If we are centered in something deeper than that, our moment remains a moment and a rejected lie that enters in and exits as quickly.
If we start plotting by entertaining these thoughts and nurturing these desires, we set ourselves in a way that is not good. We start to act upon the evil we imagine and consider mere entertainment. Our plotting becomes doing and we stop rejecting evil.
Fearing God is not a negative when it is done rightly and when we embrace it as a response to His power delivered in love and grace. It is no more negative or frightful to fear God than it is to fear the majesty and intrinsically dangerous beauty of the Grand Canyon or the Pacific Ocean. It is the beginning of wisdom to recognize that something greater than ourselves has the power to overwhelm us as well as to embrace us in perfect love.
But transgression is stepping over a very thin line between trust and contempt. We have the capacity to make some very bad choices that can make a very big mess for ourselves and others. Scripture calls it sin, or missing the mark.
Sometimes we work hard at it, deep in our hearts, on our beds, in our minds, and through our plotting.
But, for those who have made the choice to follow the Way of Righteousness, there is something deeper in the heart and the daily, mom net-by-moment choice to choose that Way is where we find redemption and help.
The negative resides within us along with the potential for sin, but the power to follow the Christ of God also resides within the hearts of those who welcome Him.
"Transgression speaks to the wicked
deep in his heart;
there is no fear of God
before his eyes.
For he flatters himself in his own eyes
that his iniquity cannot be found out and hated.
The words of his mouth are trouble and deceit;
he has ceased to act wisely and do good.
He plots trouble while on his bed;
he sets himself in a way that is not good;
he does not reject evil."
(Psalm 36:1-4 ESV)
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