the basic message #E232
1/6/04
On New Year's day, the Sci-Fi Channel did a Twilight Zone marathon. Although I didn't like the show much when I was a kid, I'm now looking at it in a new light. I find Rod Serling's work to be filled with spiritual overtones, often very understated. In one episode, evil was discussed, and while I can't recall the specific words, but it went something like this: "Where war is found, evil will be there too. Where oppression is found, evil will be found as well." The quotes went on further, but I think you get the idea. Perhaps this whole thing sounds kind of cliché, but is it?
What makes Satan worry? Is it losing a soul to God? Well, I'm sure Satan doesn't get too happy about losing one, but I think Satan is much more worried about us figuring out his method of operation. If a great number of people figure out how Satan works, his entire kingdom will be in jeopardy. I think Satan loves strife better than anything. Strife causes marriages to crumble. Strife causes workers to dread driving to their jobs in the morning. Strife, on a global level, often causes an entire nation to wage war against another nation. Strife and evil, if not the very same, are at least brothers.
I'm a keyed-up sort of guy. My boss once told me, "John, you're strung as tight as a piano wire." I agree. So in the process of being tightly-strung, I'm sometimes hard to get along with. I have little patience for people with no discipline, and even less for people who have no game-plan. It sometimes seems like the majority of the population just meanders through life without any tangible roadmap for where they're going. You can easily see that strife is a regular visitor in my life, but do I have a choice?
A wise man once said, "pick your battles carefully". Unfortunately, I tend to try to fight most of my battles rather than walking away. That's stupid, and I know it's stupid. Can I change? Not only can I change, I must change if I want to claim the label of Christian. Think about that for a second- if I want to claim to be a loyal follower of Jesus Christ, I must mellow-out. My job has recently caused me to be a horse's-ass frequently, so I'm having to make some adjustments in my job status. If I continue to have problems, I might have to change jobs completely. Once again, it's not optional for me to follow the mandates of Christ. But I digress- let's talk about how evil and strife goof-up this world.
Let's take traffic, for instance. If someone cuts you off, do you retaliate? Most of us do, and when we do, evil enters the situation. Does it really matter if we arrive at our destination 2 minutes earlier? Women are notorious for battling over choice parking places at malls and shopping centers. Once again, how long does it take to walk an addition 10 parking place widths? 1 minute? 2 minutes? Evil revels again. Over the years, I've read dozens of newspaper stories that talk about how people get into arguments over the most trivial things with some ending up with someone dying. In one article, two guys started arguing over what TV program they were going to watch. Before it was over, one was dead. Is any TV show worth killing someone over? Certainly not, but it happened. I remember an incident that happened here in South Louisiana about 15 years ago. An elderly man was driving down the road when a rock hit his windshield. Since there was a dump-truck in front of him, he automatically decided that the dump-truck's tire slung the rock. He made the driver pull over, and apparently an argument ensued. The old man got a rifle out of his car trunk and shot the dump-truck driver. The driver later died, and an old man was now faced with a murder trial. I don't know how things turned out, but you can be assured that the old man's life was turned upside down. Once more, evil entered in and took over. Can you see how Satan loves to inject his evil into situations in the form of strife?
I'll close with a challenge. The challenge is for you.........and me. In the coming week, let's all pretend that Jesus is watching us personally. Heck, he is, so why pretend? Anyhow, every time we encounter a situation where evil rears its ugly head, let's just walk away, or drive away or just zone out. When the guy cuts you off in traffic, let him go. If you believe in God's ultimate justice system, he'll pay for it. When we retaliate, we incur punishment for ourselves as well. Why would we want to let a total stranger rob us of a good relationship with Jesus?