Scripture: Psalm 5:4 (TNIV)
For you are not a God who is pleased with wickedness; with you, order evil people are not welcome.

Thought for the Day: “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” –Edmund Burke: philosopher, stuff statesman, author, speaker, and political theorist.

I think we often consider evil personified: Hitler, James Holmes, even Satan. But throughout the Bible, evil is used more as a descriptor, an adverb about the way we live our lives and the consequences of our actions. Evil can be personified, but evil in and of itself is not a person—it’s our actions, and the consequences of our actions. And in many ways, that’s even scarier.

We’re not really good at taking responsibility for our actions these days. We’re litigious, so almost everything is someone else’s fault. I think this comes from a place of selfishness. We’ve stopped, for the most part, looking to God for inspiration, to Jesus as an example, and to the Christ within each of us for motivation.

For us, I think the trick is remembering that we don’t have to make decisions alone, and that our decisions always affect more people than we think. We have God, all the time. We have the living Christ within all the time. So why not practice physically experiencing God in our lives, informing and guiding every decision we make, so that every consequence comes from love, so that every action is inspired by God.

Prayer: Holy God of Love and Mercy, grant me the wisdom to make loving decisions, whose consequences resonate throughout the universe with compassion and generosity. Amen.