I've recently been reading a book entitled The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. Okay, pause for explanation. I belong to a couple of book websites that occasionally send me ARC's...I lost you again, didn't I? Sorry, I'm such a book nerd. ARCs or Advance Reader Copies (or, if you want to get really technical, Advance Uncorrected Proofs) are books they send out to a select few readers before they are released to the general public. In exchange for getting free books before the rest of the world has the privilege of paying for them, you agree to read and write a review of the book. This way, by the time the book goes on sale, there are already a dozen reviews for people to peruse. They are usually not fully edited and the binding is not all nice and pretty...but it's a free book so who really cares. (Side note: in January, not only did I score the above mentioned book but I also received the newest John Piper book - TOTALLY FREE - Bonus!!!)
Okay, let's try this again.
I've recently been reading a book entitled The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. (For those of you that are still concerned, it's a book of short science fiction stories...and admit it, if you saw this book on the shelf you'd at least pick it up and read the dust jacket...but you'll have to wait a few weeks because it hasn't been released yet...)
Okay, third time's the charm...
I've recently been reading a book entitled The Mad Scientist's Guide to World Domination. I wanted to share with you a brief quote from the foreword:
"In most adventure fiction, be it drama or melodrama, the hero is defined very much by his (or her) adversary. The hero, sadly, is the more passive figure, forever waiting for the villain to set the plot in motion, so that he can then take whatever actions are necessary to forestall it."
Maybe this doesn't immediately strike you as it did me. But think about it for a minute. We live in a society that attempts to cure the result rather than prevent the problem. Look at our health - we focus on treating the disease instead of living in a way that will prevent us from getting it. Look at our finances - we rack up thousands of dollars in debt and then look for a way to pay for it instead of not spending it in the first place. And I'm afraid we live our Christian lives in the same way. We wait for some terrible evil to happen in our world and then we jump on the bandwagon with all the other 'good people' and attempt to fight it. And that is exactly what this quote is talking about. We live passively. We wait for evil to do it's work and then we go to war. We forget that we are always at war.
What would happen if we focused on prevention of evil? What if those villains the quote talks about had had someone who had given of their own time and resources to show them that they were unconditionally loved? What if we loved people before they hit rock bottom, instead of trying to help them heal afterward? What if we took the time to make that phone call or send that encouragement card? What if we made time for that lunch date instead of simply saying, "We should get together sometime." What if we stopped saying, "I'm too busy." What do we say when we stand before God and He says, "I put so-and-so directly in your path so that you could show them my love and help them through their struggles." I'm pretty sure "I was busy" isn't going to cut it.
Satan is always at work but much of the time we miss it. We're waiting for the really big, dramatic, obvious evil so we can see a big, dramatic, obvious result. And don't get me wrong - there's definitely massive evil out there that we need to be fighting. But Satan is much more subtle than we give him credit for. Maybe a little of our time spent in prevention now will circumvent some of the more obvious evil 20 years down the road. Maybe that word of encouragement today will bring a smile, which will prevent hopelessness, which will save a life, which will change the world.
What are you waiting for? Don't wait for the villain to do his work. Don't live passively.
