I watched a movie the other day, and one exchange between the Holy Spirit and a man really caught my attention. Paraphrased, it goes something like this.
Holy Spirit: “How do you decide if something is good?”
Man: “If it’s beneficial to me or someone I love.”
Holy Spirit: “How do you decide if something is evil?”
Man: “If it hurts me or someone I care about.”
Holy Spirit: “Have you ever changed your mind?”
Man: “Well, yeah…”
Holy Spirit: “And when your idea of good or evil clashes with someone else’s, it results in fights between you and the other person.”
Man: “Yeah.”
Holy Spirit: “How confusing. You were never meant to be the judge between good and evil.”
It got me thinking. How do we determine what’s good and evil? They are definitely important enough that we should be in agreement with other people, and not changing our minds.
There’s no doubt that there is a good and evil. Most people build their lives around being a good person. Maybe we have different definitions of what’s the most important consideration to being a good person, but that’s usually the goal of most people.
But that’s just the point! We can’t agree on what’s good or evil; we need someone else to decide for us.
How convenient is it that we have a good God?
I don’t know if I ever shared this, but back in Training Camp God helped me to realize the only bad was what was apart from God. Everything else was good, my perspective just made things seem more or less good.
It’s the same concept, taken to another level. Our version of good and evil can’t be trusted, but God’s can, because He created good, and gave us the choice to choose good or evil.
Trust is one of the hardest things. Trust means accepting that someone else knows better than you, and that you’re willing to put your life, health, possessions, etc, in their hands. Having your trust be misplaced often leaves a hole that isn’t easily repaired.
God will never misplace our trust, but we have to know what we’re trusting Him with. Are we trusting Him to give us lives with which we can find no wrong? Or are we trusting Him to give us a good life?
What’s your definition of good? Is it the one defined by the world, or the one defined by God? Because only when you’re trusting in God’s standard of good will you be able to experience life the way we were intended to.
Roman 8:38 says that, “We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose.”
If you love God, then you can be confident He is working all things in your life for good, and that is a very good thing!
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