No disaster overcomes the righteous, but the wicked are full of misery – Proverbs 12:21
That is obviously not true. We all know, don’t we, that doing the right thing is no guarantee of success or of protection from evil. Good people are murdered in their sleep. Bad people get MBA’s and law degrees.
At least that is what I think at first glance, especially if I read it in the King James -- There shall no evil happen to the just. If, though we consider the second phrase which states that the wicked are filled with trouble and misery, this is true. I hope I don’t know what goes on in the mind of a psychopath, but in general, the wicked are miserable. One look at the face of Bill Maher (reputed bastard spawn of Marty Feldman and Hooker Smurf) should convince most anyone of that. Since I use Maher as an example, you can understand that by wicked I am not talking about some kid smoking reefer down on the corner, or those who make mistakes and do things that are foolish. The unrighteous are possessed of a filthy, degrading spirit, a warped, self-aggrandizing sense of justice. They are hate-filled bearers of false witness, mockers, and traitors.
Among the wicked are those who purposely remove all the old landmarks because they do not like boundaries. They reject the foundational moral truths of society as hindrances to their desires. They do this not realizing these delimiters create the patterns for deriving meaning from life. By casting away the markers they become lost in a pointless world of excess and emotion. Liketakingoutallthespacesbetweenwordsandthennotcontentwiththatfurthergimnorzadni.
And we wonder why they are petty, ugly, confused, and crazy.
OK, so the wicked are miserable losers. What about the righteous? Does disaster or evil overcome the just?
As Petey often says, there is none good but God. Jesus, the Righteous One, was crucified by the sins of man. Yet He overcame evil. In Romans 12:21, Paul tells us, Do not be conquered by evil but conquer evil with good. I know I reference this verse frequently, and I repeat so often because it is possibly the most difficult for me to internalize. I want to overcome evil the way John McClane did in Die Hard. I want to beat it at its own game. I want to smack it down and gloat over it. And sometimes it is necessary to fight back in a physical way when the innocent are threatened. When a person with a weapon goes berserk, the proper response is to put him down as rapidly and efficiently as possible.
By far, though, most conflicts with evil are not like that. Wickedness takes many forms apart from bloodshed and death. Far better, on a personal level, to respond to slights, insults, and unfairness with truth, love, and forgiveness – not necessarily in that order – than to climb into the pit with one’s attacker.
So once again God is right and I am wrong. The righteous are never conquered by evil for they see beyond today's trials and failures. At the end of the road is another road. We trust in the ultimate justice of God, in His wisdom, grace, and power, first to see us through this life and enable us to overcome in Christ, and then to ultimately set things right where "the wicked cease from troubling and the weary are at rest".
8 comments:
"The righteous are never conquered by evil for they see beyond today's trials and failures."
Somewhere in the old Chinese Book of Changes it references a saying:
"The superior man
understands the transitory
in the light of the eternity of the end."
We read these things and nod -- but they embody a real truth, don't they? It sounds almost trite, but how precious is a "greater perspective" on things, especially in the midst of trouble?
I did, at one time, keep company with people who took great delight- indeed, made a lifestyle of transgressing boundaries- "rejecting the foundational moral truths as hinderances", and all. They were intelligent, beautiful, talented- cooler than liquid nitrogen.
It wasn't a good thing to do. No stories. Sorry.
I came away from that association with an insatiable hunger for decency, and a love for the beautiful free space within the boundaries.
JWM
Ah, but the real trick, the raccoon method, is not so much to live within the boundaries, but rather to take the beautiful architecture of the Big 3 virtues and make them live within us. They are a skeleton or a scaffold, the support beams that give our lives shape and lift them aloft. Not a rigid exoskeleton. We are not crustaceans. The beauty is that, so long as we build ourselves on their sturdy parameters, we can live outwardly as expressively or inspressively as we please.
As to the Proverb, I was thinking about that a little, earlier today. I think the key point lies in the idea of disaster overcoming the righteous. It's not that disasters don't befall us, it's that whatever happens, we don't allow them to turn us away from God. While I think of myself and my life as ridiculously fortunate, I know that I could easily have spent it wallowing in misery and lamenting my woes, some of which would even have been valid. But all I would have for that would be even more woes, and I would have missed out on all the miraculous joys that surround us, everywhere and all the time.
I was reading this very sobering account, earlier tonight. It made me worry about the future of our own nation, for a little while at least, and it's certainly got a lot of wise advice for "just in case." Especially given that the idea of a collapse suddenly seems much more possible now than ever before in my lifetime. But when I was done reading it, I realized that while it is always wise to be prepared in the material sense (and maybe it's time to place a couple of orders from this place, not to mention getting back to the range and signing up for some good classes), it is far more important to be prepared in the vertical sense. Because no matter what happens here, it is O that matters. Everything else is secondary at best. Everything.
It sounds almost trite, but how precious is a "greater perspective" on things, especially in the midst of trouble?
That's good.
I think the key point lies in the idea of disaster overcoming the righteous. It's not that disasters don't befall us, it's that whatever happens, we don't allow them to turn us away from God.
I think you are exactly right.
I remember Frugal Squirrel from the good old days of Y2K. Frugal always had lots of good information. I think you're right that the social fabric is much weaker now than at any time since the 1960's, early 70's. But you also have the right perspective. I suspect things will eventually right themselves, we'll see some changes and repair some of the damage. But if not, well, all the more reason to focus on the really important stuff.
Now you've got me thinking. One guy that hit all the patriot/survivalist/militia forums a few years ago was known as "Gunkid". He was a legendary troll with dozens of screen names. I think his real name was John Davis. He would hit a forum like Frugal's or True Patriot and just spew post after post about the AR-15 with a "can" (silencer) and a .22LR conversion kit as the ultimate survival firearm. But really he was an expert on everything. The first time I had any dealing with him, he started telling me how to shoot my Super Blackhawk .44 Mag. He's also famous for suggesting a wheelbarrow as a bug-out vehicle, which led to the term "assault wheelbarrow" entering the survivalist lexicon.
I hope the Feds have locked him back up -- he'd been actually done time on federal drug charges, so the ironic thing was that he could not even legally own a firearm.
:D
Assault wheelbarrow?!
That's pretty ingenious.
I have a friend at work who believes the Bible is garbage. He is not an atheist: he believes in a higher power, or perhaps several (one for each galaxy?) He is very bright. I have been using a kind of Socratic method of asking him one question after another (if you believe this idea, then what do you think about this concept?) He also asks me many good questions that I cannot answer very well. I wish I could help him know God's love.
Bob, I am reading a book along those lines -- that is, the author is advocating for an Absolute -- his approach is very scientific and rational. The book is a fairly fast read, it's called The God Theory by Bernard Haisch. Haisch is an astrophysicist who has worked with NASA, former editor of an astrophysics journal, respected scientist.
Haisch rejects pretty well all religious traditions -- throws the Baby Jesus out with the bathwater so to speak. Nevertheless he absolutely hammers scientism, i.e., scientistic fundamentalism.
It's a book I wouldn't necessarily recommend buying as it is basically one cool concept with some backstory. But you can probably pick it up at the library, published in 2006. It might give you some ideas about moving your friend toward a more realistic view of the One True God.
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