Wednesday, May 18,
2016
Don’t do as the wicked do, and don’t follow the path of evildoers. Don’t even think about it; don’t go that way. Turn away and keep moving. For evil people can’t sleep until they’ve
done their evil deed for the day. They
can’t rest until they’ve caused someone to stumble. They eat the food of wickedness and drink the
wine of violence! Proverbs 4:14-17(NLT)
If your father is the wisest man
in the universe, and he tells you “don’t even think about it…keep moving” –
well, it pays to heed the advice.
Solomon characterized the two ends of the spectrum of human character – the
low end goes to evil continually, eating the food of wickedness and drinking
the wine of violence. The other, higher
end of human character is that which aspires to Godly kindness. Solomon told his son to watch out for the
wicked…just turn and keep moving!
Mother Teresa of Calcutta made a
lifetime of doing that. In 1979 this
humble sister of the Roman Catholic Order of the Missionaries of Charity
received the Nobel Peace Prize for her worldwide orphanage work based in
Calcutta.
She was born in Skopje, a little
town that is part of Kosovo, the scene of much violence and human brokenness. It would have been quite normal (and much easier)
to sit with violence and wickedness, but Teresa walked the different, higher
pathway, touching the lives of millions with the love of Christ.
Physically she was only 5’ tall, but
it would be wrong to characterize this physically-diminutive woman as tiny in
character or courage; she had the heart of a lion.
In 1988 she received an honorary
degree from the University of San Diego and used her address to the crowd of
6,000 admirers like Solomon counselling his son about good and evil. Here’s what she said:
"Abortion has become the greatest destroyer of
peace, because it destroys two lives, the life of the child and the conscience
of the mother," she said. " . . . Let us thank our parents for
wanting us, for loving us, for giving us the joy of living. . . . You are
priceless to God himself."
In her address, Mother Teresa also recited an
anecdote to illustrate that every person, whether rich or poor, is significant
in the eyes of God.
She talked about a desperate father who arrived at
her mission with his only son, who was sick and dying. The doctor had given the
child a prescription, but the father could not afford to purchase the medicine.
As she was talking to the father, another man walked in with a basket full of
medications. At the top of the pile was the medicine needed by the child.
Even with "millions and millions and millions
of children in the world," God was still concerned with "that little
child in the slums of Calcutta," said Mother Teresa.[2]
Remember that Mother Teresa was
speaking to a graduating college crowd at the end of the 20th century,
and she was doing so in California, to privileged young people steeped in the
wine of personal privilege and rights, only a decade after Roe vs. Wade made
abortion legal. She was being honored,
and could have basked in the sunshine of the moment; she chose to speak truth
against the tide of cultural power!
Small woman; big message!
For You Today
As you move about in this world,
keep it in focus that Solomon never told his son to ignore evil; he told him to
turn from it. That means move in the
other direction, but it doesn’t mean take your eyes off it.
Like another wise man said: Be harmless as doves and wise as serpents![3]
Go to VIDEO
[1] Title Image: By
Martin-loewenstein Ölbild von Żaba, Hamburg 2010, via Wikimedia
Commons
[2] H.G. REZA, Mother Teresa Calls Abortion Greatest Threat to Peace, (L.A.
Times, June
01, 1988)|
[3]
Jesus Christ, Matthew 10:16
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