My five-year-old is always playing with Legos and superheroes. He regularly suggests that some are “good guys” and others are “bad guys.” I’m sure that’s the same way I played and probably the way all kids play.
When we’re young, we see the world through simple lenses.
Good / bad
Them / us
But as we grow, so must our vision of self and others. Our childish categories must evolve and be informed by real life experiences with real human beings.
“I gave you milk, not solid food, for you were not yet ready for it.” (1 Corinthians 3:2)
Little baby trees need help standing on their own, so gardeners secure them to metal poles. But as the tree grows, its roots and trunk develop enough depth and breadth to stand alone, and the gardener removes the pole, the crutch.
So it is with our spiritual life. In our younger years, the rigidity of religious ritual and frameworks are useful. We’re not yet ready to stand (and think and discern) on our own. So we grow up with categories—good guys, bad guys. But as we age and experience life—the honest reality—we realize that life and people are complex. Sometimes the people you thought were good guys are capable of really bad things. Sometimes the people you thought were bad guys shock you with heroic gestures. Sometimes the people in prison should be out and those out should be in.
In a spirit of perseverance, I’ve heard it taught: “Don’t let the bad guys win.” Ok, but which ones are they? There’s bad in me… there’s bad in you. Praying a prayer or checking a box (or getting a seminary degree) doesn’t shift a person from bad guy to good guy. Forgiven by the sacrifice of Jesus—yes. But healthy, whole, right, good—not yet. We’re all a work in progress.
Jesus instructed his followers that there are weeds intermixed with the wheat (Matthew 13). Don’t pull up the weeds just yet because you might pull some wheat, and visa vera. We live in the era of “mixture.” It’d be easier to stay in an immature religious framework—good / bad, wheat / weeds—but it’s not that simple. We want the world to be black and white but it isn’t. We wish we could manage our own “right-ness” (righteousness) with knowledge, discipline, and determination. Sorry. The Divine Designer wired you and the universe such that we need him constantly. We were never supposed to eat from tree of good and evil for a reason. It’s best to submit ourselves to the One who specializes in bringing good from bad—in circumstances and in people.
So don’t be too quick to assume it’s black and white, good verses evil. There’s a little villain in all of us—even the “good guy.” But take heart… there’s also a God-like imagine hidden in the worst of bad guys. We just need to suspend judgment long enough to find it.