I have been thinking about this verse all week:

Which had me thinking on life, building, being vs. destroying, destruction. Which led me to a great little rabbit trail. Follow along…

It started with the Hillsdale President (Larry Arnns) who spoke these words at Charlie Kirk’s Memorial,

“There’s a ladder that reaches up toward God. At the bottom are the ordinary good things around us everywhere. If we can call them by their names, they have being. The beings of the good things are figments of God… A good thing is a thing that has being.”

I found that Arnns’ conclusions are drawn from the works of Augustine (400 AD ish) and when I looked into his writings on this topic, I saw they could be summarized:

Evil has no life of its own; it is only the twisting or absence of the good that God creates.

See, we are in good Company as Truth Dwellers….because that summary led me to C.S. Lewis’ words in Mere Christianity,

“Goodness is, so to speak, itself: badness is only spoiled goodness. And there must be something good first before it can be spoiled. … Evil is a parasite, not an original thing.”

These are such deep thoughts. I’ve been pondering them deeply. It’s hard to even put it all into words so I’m grateful other men have done it for me. 🙂

So, evil is a corruption of what is good. It cannot create . It doesn’t build, it destroys. It cannot stand on its own. Evil depends on good to exist.

This contrast is seen everywhere right now.

I see building up, light, truth, beauty, goodness. And I see destruction, darkness, deception, corruption.

C.S. Lewis is right… evil is a parasite. Or a virus. Parasite or virus, both metaphors help us see different angles of evil’s nature. It’s not an original. It’s a lesser than. It’s a mimic. It’s a hijacker. That’s Satan’s story that continues today. If evil is a virus, how does it act in our world today? 

We see viruses in the body. They mimic and replicate and hijack. They don’t live on their own.

We see viruses of the mind / ideology. False ideas. Thoughts that twist truths just enough to lead away from Christ, THE Truth and His Word.

We see viruses of the soul that take good desires and direct them to anything other than Christ.

We see viruses in culture… replicated even faster now because of technology and media.

So what are we to do as Christ followers who do not want any part of darkness and want to live in Light & Truth?

We are called to BEing: to build, to create with mind hands and tongue, to cultivate goodness. To call forth truth and goodness and things excellent praiseworthy and righteous! So we must:

• Stay rooted in The Source of all Light & Love & Goodness! Darkness is overcome by filling ourselves with Light.
• Be assured that Truth, Goodness, Beauty will always be stronger than darkness because they flow from The Mighty One, Creator of all the Universe!
• Proclaim Truth Clearly, Boldly, Humbly because evil collapses eventually when it is in the Light

Given this truth, one of the most defiant acts is to celebrate life’s goodness. Stand Firm against evil by EnJOYing the real, good gifts of God. LIFE, Relationships, Beauty, Creation, Food, Music, and on and on. To call them into being by gratefulness… even grass:

Eyes to See Grass

To build up, bring order to, create, enJOY, LOVE, express gratefulness, and to worship Him in ALL we do is Holy Work and we are pushing back the darkness by doing all of these things!

I am encouraged that we are part of something so beautiful and good and that we can truly push back darkness not by pretending evil doesn’t exist and not by being ignorant about what is going on … which is only possible because we have the privilege of living in a country where our daily life isn’t very affected by what is happening at a macro level (for a limited time more)….

But we resist evil!!! We Overcome Evil by Good! By building up and creating. By enJOYing and being grateful.
Through BE-ing and LIVING Life and Life Abundant!

And we take captive our thoughts & make them obedient to Christ!
And part of that is,
“Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable, if anything is excellent or praiseworthy, think about such things” Phil 4:8

So savor beauty, not artificial but true beauty from the Lord & His created beings. Delight in the ordinary extraordinary. Be filled to overflowing with Truth. And in doing so, you are resisting the parasite of evil.

God of beauty and truth and light… you are the ladder to which all longings climb and I find my satisfaction in you alone because all things good come from you! Let my delight always know its source…. let pleasure always be under your reign… Remind me that living in the Light IS pushing back the darkness. FILL me to overflowing with your light, truth, and LOVE and let my little shine throughout all areas of my LIFE.