Natalie Vaughn
Psalm 37:1-2
Do not fret
because of the wicked;
do
not be envious of wrongdoers,
for they
will soon fade like the grass,
and
wither like the green herb.
As a child I had
simplistic labels for people that boiled into two camps: The Good Guys vs The
Bad Guys. The Houston Oilers vs the bad guys; Bobby Ewing vs JR Ewing; my
mascot vs your mascot… I really think it was in high school before I was forced to see
that some things were dualistic in nature. And then later I somehow noticed that sacred people in my life
had “bad” amongst
their “good.” Fast forward a few years and even as an adult, when I’m
introduced to a new person, thought, or concept, my first inclination is to
figure out what camp they/it fit into: good or bad.
Today’s Lenten scripture passages also label people into different
camps, primarily the wicked and the righteous. The wicked will be destroyed, their children cut-off, they will
perish…
I was struggling with
the practicality of these texts today.
Without a current
person/group of people that are outrageously evil
I have a hard time with the practicality of outright labeling someone “wicked.”
Ninevites? Yes. Hitler?
Yes.
But You and Me? – Not so much.
On a daily basis how
many people do you meet who are wicked? I venture to say zero. Sure there are those that you may not like, but wicked? Zero. Webster’s defines Wickedness as
“That
which is evil and contrary to the will of God.”
Oh boy…suddenly because of my
sin, my choice to turn away from the person God has made me to be, the body of
people who are wicked grows to not only include those evil people in history,
but it now includes me.
That’s a sobering reality.
All this time I’ve been making
wickedness about good vs. bad, when it’s really just always been about us…. broken, frail, wicked us.
Yikes.
It’s dawning on me that we
are each and every one of us united in our common brokenness and all of my
tendencies to try to see the world in this dualistic way is just another
example of how we each struggle to bear the weight of the “wickedness” we each
have within.
Can you see yourself in
these passages? Do you feel the pull to make it about good vs. evil?
Who/how God is calling
you to be moment by moment?
I’d love to know your
thoughts.
Psalm 37:3-7
Trust in
the Lord, and do good;
so
you will live in the land, and enjoy security.
Take
delight in the Lord,
and
he will give you the desires of your heart.
Commit your
way to the Lord; trust in him, and he will act.
He will
make your vindication shine like the light,
and
the justice of your cause like the noonday.
Be
still before the Lord, and wait patiently for him.
Natalie (aka Deacon
Vaughn) is on the facebooks and her twitter handle is @texasrtexas, you can be
the one of the first to follow her.
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