Compassion vs a warning

            I feel caught in the middle between compassion and a warning. As a pastor I want to hug those who are sad. I well up with tears when things go wrong. My other nature wants to give advice on the pitfalls of bad decisions. What is a poor pastor to do? I feel that my blog this week should reflect both sides. I know my wife wrinkles her nose at my rant about stupid people caught in tragedy but I can’t help myself. People of God give not only the good news of God but also the bad news.

            A few days ago in Calgary Alberta a little girl and her mother met foul play. The reasons for their deaths is still unclear. What we do know is that they were killed by a man the family knew. This tragedy had ripped at the heart of the city. Yet, it’s not like it’s never happened before. As a young boy I remember a little girl being found in our neighborhood cut to pieces in garbage bags. A neighbor was the perpetrator. Years later in Victoria a little boy disappeared at a parent’s baseball game and was never seen again. I wish I didn’t remember because these things are terrible.

            Ok so let’s look at both camps. The compassionate one is feeling helpless and sad. No person deserves to be killed. I know that God feels his creation is precious. We are to treat life as a gift to be shared and protected. Evil people do evil things because they are evil. Makes sense. I cannot think of a place we could go that deserves death. We visit parades, foreign countries, and neighborhoods that are dangerous. They shouldn’t be but they are. Why can’t we just have fun and visit places in safety because people should be nice and welcoming. That is the perfect world.

            Ok, so let’s look at the imperfect world. Here is the warning. There are places that evil people love to hang out. Should we expect them to be nice because we are nice? See the perfect world reference. For warning purposes evil people are evil because they do evil things. I might even say they like doing evil things. I love video games it’s fun. Evil people love being evil, it’s fun to them. The warning is to stay away from evil people and places. Unless of course, you love playing with fire. It appears the warning is this: if you play with evil then expect evil to play evil games.

            What does God have to say about nice and evil people. I guess it would be a lot: it’s the Bible. 1 Corinthians 15:33 says “Don’t be misled, bad company corrupts good character.” Let’s break that down for you. The word “misled” has synonyms in the dictionary: “Deceive, delude, take in, lie to, fool, hoodwink, throw off the scent, pull the wool over someone's eyes, misguide, misinform, give wrong information to” Bad character (see my evil descriptions). Good character (see the perfect world scenario). God made us to be the best we could be. We were made to be good people. However, sometimes a fallen world corrupts a good person. We want the best in people but that is not what happens to everyone. God knows that some will turn away and become evil.

            The problem is this: what to do with evil people. Pastors can tell the stories of nice people hoping evil people will be nice. The lineup of individuals complaining about evil people not playing fair is very long. Nice people are nice because they wish everyone to get along. That is a nice thing. The problem is that evil people think evil. That means they do evil things because they want to. Nice people believe that everyone can change. Being nice should change the hearts of evil people. Ya, in a perfect world, yet not in a fallen one.

            Pat what the hell are you getting at? I am sad the girls died this week. I am sad for the people in Nice France that died. I am, really I am. Still I am drawn back to the warning because I am a pastor. The Bible clearly says “Do not be misled.” I am here to inform you that associating with bad people will create odds in favorer of bad things happening. A bar late at night will increase the chance of disaster. Sometimes we do nice things for evil people, yet they remain the same. Why? Because they are evil.

            Trying to reason with Islam is stupid. They have an evil agenda, duh. Living with criminals will mean you will live in a dangerous lifestyle, duh. Believing you can associate with evil to bring happiness to them is stupid, duh. Evil loves to be loved so they can remain evil in a misled state. In the beginning of the Bible the devil misled Adam and Eve. We are told these days that Christian beliefs are stupid. Evil people need love and a right to exist. Would a fallen world look like this? I had a friend tweet that you couldn’t make this crap in the world up. Nice people could never conceive of what is happening. That my friends are exactly what the devil is counting on since the beginning of time.

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