Monday, March 22, 2010

Next

Human beings are the most powerful creatures in nature, set up by God, I believe, to control it. Yet for all their power they are, in the end, frail creatures. In their freedom they make mistakes, sometimes grievous ones, even ones that might hurt nature, and even themselves. I believe the men of Congress recently did that; concerned about themselves, they passed laws which would ultimately hurt others. Oh they had a good end in mind, but they would take away our freedoms to accomplish it, the freedoms given us by God. In trying to do good for us, they sought to be as gods, creating our future, a future in which they would control our fates, and they would be all powerful.

God created men; men created sin.

So what are we to do next? Our temptations certainly are to judge the sinners – “Make them pay.” But we are told by our Creator to judge not, lest we be judged. So then, does sin go unpunished? No, but we are not to be the punishers. So what then should we do? We should act to lessen or negate the effects of sin or evil and perhaps, through our efforts and God’s blessings, perhaps cause even good to come out of this. We should not unduly waste time pointing at the sinners or chastising them, although we should ensure, to the degree we can, that they do not sin again. We should instead point at the evil done, and seek to reverse or minimize it. We should seek to bring good out of evil; that is as God taught us. It’s as He made us.

Our actions should not be to highlight the evils of actions taken by Congressmen, it should be to minimize them or negate them. Don’t point: “Look, costs are going up, not down.” We should take actions to make them go down in ways that people are not hurt. Don’t gleefully point: “Doctors are abandoning their practices in disgust.” Find ways to pass laws to ease their hardships, to incentivize and even glorify those who choose the medical profession, to care for their fellow human beings. And if some are indeed denied care, find ways to enable or encourage their neighbors – US -- to care for them, yes, to love one another.

Making good out of evil will be a difficult task, but that is the way God operates in this world. He allows us to do evil, but he also allows us to repent and fix it, too. And yes, I used the word “repent”.

There is some risk that should our efforts succeed in making good of this evil, the evil-doers will loudly boast of their sin: “See, no evil came about. Costs did not go up; doctors did not abandon you. They lied.” They may even echo the words heard in the Garden of Eden, tempting Eve to believe that evil was good: “You will not die.” They may try to paint their evil as good all because of the results of our good efforts. Considering this, possibly there will be temptations for us to let the evil happen. But it is not our place to judge, nor is it our place to permit the evil we see coming to happen. And who knows, maybe those who have done evil may see our good works and good results, and repent.

With God, all things are possible -- but His work on earth starts with us.

Let’s stop pointing at the sin we could not prevent, and get on with the work of fixing things. In the eyes and plans of God, this evil may just be an opportunity for us to do His good. And He’s counting on us. All of us.

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