Why should I be titling this reflection and devoting time to write about wicked people?
Because they’re real. God’s word speaks of them. The psalmist has written about them. We would like to wish human wickedness away even when it stares us in the face, messes up our communal – and should I add, our individual personal lives? I wrote before about the day when a well-meaning psychologist, a friend, suggested that there are no bad-minded people. I respect her for being where I once was, thinking that all persons are inherently good. Of course, there is invaluable worth in every human being crafted by the hand of God. But our inherent worth shines through insofar as we can admit that we need the break from our proneness to wickedness from which only the goodness of God delivers us. Original sin is real.
Yes! We have trouble admitting that we are flawed from the inside out. We don’t have to commit adultery and murder like David before we can confess “I was shaped in iniquity, a sinner when my mother conceived me.”
Let the truth be told, even if you’re a test tube baby, it’s human stuff you came from, so there’s a mean streak running through you. If not exactly human, having genes from another source, you’re automatically a Frankenstein and that must be infinitely worse.
Hear the servant of the Lord:
1 Transgression speaks to the wicked deep in their hearts; there is no fear of God before their eyes. 2 For they flatter themselves in their own eyes that their iniquity cannot be found out and hated 3 The words of their mouth are mischief and deceit; they have ceased to act wisely and do good, 4 They plot mischief while on their beds; they are set on a way that is not good; they do not reject evil.
Oh. You haven’t sunk that low. Then don’t wait to, lest the silent, seemingly mean streak inside you overtakes you and overpowers you, and makes you look like a Frankenstein too. You never know what wickedness you might experience that might trap you into a tit for tat lifestyle where the tits take over and before you know it, your pretty self looks ugly on the outside from the inside.
Hand yourself over to the Power of Good before that streak of badness claims entitlement to all of you and human wickedness defines you. It doesn’t have to. My point is that while human wickedness is real, deliverance from that sate of affairs is yours and mine to claim. We don’t have to be wicked people; but if we think that we are immune from thinking, doing and acting wickedly, let’s think again and ask God to help us; because guess what?
6 Your righteousness is like the mighty mountains, your judgements are like the great deep; you save humans and animals alike, O god. 7 How precious is your steadfast love, O God! All people may take refuge in the shadow of your wings 9 For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light.