JMS Blog

What is evil? We paint a picture of evil to be someone who is faceless. What if you look in the mirror and you are the very essence of evil? What if your beloved is evil?

The biggest mistake we make is that we automatically pre-judge a group of people as evil simply because we don't know them personally. Let's take the Virginia Tech Massacre for example. If the gunman had used a knife or his own hands to kill 32 people, would he have felt as victimized or that that's what he needed to do? If he had seen each of their faces as he killed them, I'm sure it would've worked out differently. It's the depersonalization that makes killing so much simpler. It's the depersonalization that makes name-calling, slandering, defaming, and persecuting all that much simpler.

Why do we turn colors when we drive, giving the middle finger, drive-by shooting, and cursing? It's because we hide behind the biggest metal that depersonalizes us and the other drivers.

Pastor Joshua told us that we need to value lives. His all time motto is "love lives." I didn't quite understand what he meant until I started to see each individual as valuable and not just a part of a group, or a race, or a label, or even a heap of metal. I saw that my attitude when driving has changed. I began to see that each person has a reason, thought, opinion, and cause of why they do what they do.

I also see people disrespect others when they value themselves and don't see how valuable others are. Each person is someone's child, someone's sister or brother, someone's treasure. Most importantly, we all are God's children.

Pastor Joshua also said, if we can treat everyone as we would God, then we are perfect. Unfortunately, the question is, do we treat God as well as someone we could see? As well as what the media places as a god?

What is evil? Evil is absence of love. Evil is not knowing the value of each individual life. Evil is to not know God properly. People, if you are reading this, can we think back to see if we depersonalize people, groups, or a race? Whether that be behind cars, guns, or even behind the shield of this time and age, the internet. Even behind this blog, there is a real person who lives life struggling to be good and struggling to love God more each day.