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Be as good as you can be
April, 2008
with John Kuypers

Dear Friend,
Good versus evil. These are the
basis of nearly every book, movie and story ever told. If you want to
be as good as you can be, you need to ask yourself two questions: Are you
inherently good, but something brings out the bad in you? Or are you
inherently bad, but
something brings out the good in you?
I read two books recently that
graphically forced me to consider these two questions. One was "No
Country For Old Men." The movie won the best picture Oscar award. When
I was done, I put the book in the garbage. My 13 year old stepson was
aghast! "You could at least give it to someone," he exclaimed. I
said, "Why would I give something that bad to someone I care about?"
Pure evil is the only way I can describe this fictional account of senseless
barbarism in the '80's in Texas, USA.
I'm now halfway through, "Long Way
Gone," about a 13 year old African boy in Sierra Leone. It is a true
story and the author spares no detail. Beautifully written, it is a
close look at how one innocent child became transformed into a crazed,
drugged killer, slaughtering his countrymen without mercy in the name of
vengeance and survival. Like so many other war stories, man's darkest
side is blatantly exposed.
I love how Paul makes sense of good vs
evil in the book of Galatians. He writes
in Chapter 5:16, "So I say, live by the Spirit, and you will not gratify
the desires of the sinful nature. For the sinful nature desires what is
contrary to the Spirit, and the Spirit what is contrary to the sinful
nature. They are in conflict with each other, so that you do not do
what you want."
We have desires that are sinful.
We have a Spirit that stands against these desires, so that we don't do what
we inherently want to do. I believe this. I believe that History
has proven that when the constraints of society such as rule of law fall
apart, man's sinful desire quickly emerges. The examples are endless,
including the looting in New Orleans during that disaster as a recent
example, and Nazi Germany as a distant one. Wherever a dictatorship
takes hold, sinful nature is soon to follow. Even many of our elected
leaders can't do it, as we saw recently with the former New York state
governor. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely, goes
the famous phrase.
I want to be good. So do you, or you
wouldn't be a reader of Present Living Thoughts. Jesus is the
flawless role model, and we all fall short of the mark. I accept that.
We're all doing the best we can. By focusing on being present and
non-judgmental towards others and ourselves, we connect with the love of the Spirit
within each of us. Then we rise to be as good as we can be.
Imperfect but good.

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