Daily Meditations
8 Discipline yourselves, keep alert.[a] Like a roaring lion your adversary the devil prowls around, looking for someone to devour.
I don’t know if you have ever read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis but everyone should. It is such a good portrayal of the devil. The devil is wily and tricky. He will trick us if he can by making something seem good when it isn’t. He doesn’t appear evil. This is deliberate. Watch out!
I decided it is better to scream. . . . Silence is the real crime against humanity.
-Nadezhda Mandelstam, author
Most of us are aware that when something evil is going on silence allows it to continue. God calls us to step up. One who did and forfeited his life was Dietrich Bonhoeffer. During Hitler’s reign he left a place of safety in Britain and the US to return to Germany and work against Hitler. He was executed only a short while before the end of the war.
How many of us would be willing to go to prison or give our life to stop evil? I hope I would. Would you?
Gracious God, give us the strength and courage to face and fight evil. AMEN
Hate is not the opposite of love; apathy is. –———-Rollo May
Apathy is a dangerous thing. It can lead us to do nothing and see a Hitler arise. We have to speak out against evil. We cannot ignore it. We cannot wait for someone else to take care of it. We must speak.
Jesus never sat back. He always spoke out.
Gracious Lord, help us to have the strength to speak up against evil. Help us to not be afraid. AMEN
No one gossips about other people’s secret virtues. ——-Bertrand Russell
I am sure that gossip is evil. I am also sure that gossip is irresistible. When we hear something juicy about someone we just can’t wait to pass it on. Does it make us feel better? Do we seem less vulnerable ourselves? Somehow we do think that putting someone else down makes us better than…..but we are not.
We are called to love one another, have compassion and be kind. We are not called to gossip.
Loving God, forgive our sharing of gossip and remind us that we too are not perfect. AMEN
Hear God in Other Voices 