Jan
29
Lack of Understanding
Filed Under Devotional
I have fond memories of watching old westerns with my dad. We’d watch the TV westerns when we could, too. That’s how I learned about Bonanza, Gunsmoke, The Rifleman, Rawhide, and more. Even as a kid, I recognized how the stories had been arranged to make it easy to pick out the good guys and the bad guys. You could tell by the way they dressed, how they spoke, or even by their facial expressions. It was easy to tell the difference.
As an adult, I realize that good and evil is not so easy to spot a mile away. The most dangerous man is not the one in the black hat in direct opposition to you. No, the most dangerous man is the one dressed in gray and acting like your friend. He isn’t quite what you expect, but you can’t place your finger on what’s wrong. He’s the one that gets you to walk astray. Evil doesn’t drag you along kicking and screaming, it convinces you to just take a little walk down the side path. That’s where the evil in this world starts… with just a little gray.
“Evil men do not understand justice,
but those who seek the LORD understand it fully.” Proverbs 28:5
The interesting point here is that it doesn’t say that evil men oppose justice or fight justice. It says that they don’t understand it. The evil man may actually think he’s doing an acceptable thing (even though his actions are likely selfish in nature and sinful in practice). He simply doesn’t understand right from wrong.
I’m not trying to get this guy off the hook, I’m just pointing out that it’s not the perfectly informed person who opposes God, it’s the ignorant. Evil comes from not really understanding it.
Pursue God and you will understand it. It all becomes so clear. It can still be hard to do the right thing, but it is much easier to know what the right thing is.
Do you want to understand fully? Or, are you happy with less than that?