I woke up one morning with the song “A Thousand Years” by Christina Perri stuck in my head. It’s not a song I ever listen to, so I wondered, Why is this song in my head? And I felt like God interrupted my thoughts and said, “That’s how I feel about you.”
So I looked up the lyrics. It isn’t a theologically precise song, but as I pondered it, I felt God bring more clarity to what He was saying. He was showing me the love He has, not only for me, but for all of humanity.
Even the ones we see as enemies
I felt Him specifically point to people who openly reject Him, and people many Christians are tempted to treat only as the opposition: Muslims, the LGBTQ community, atheists, people living far from Him, even prominent voices I believe are currently spreading deception. They all came to mind.
He was reminding me that when He sees them standing alone, lost in a sea of darkness and drowning in evil, His heart is to rescue them. He deeply longs to scoop them up out of the chaos and place them safely into His family.
Think of Muslims born in regions governed by Sharia law, taught from infancy to hate entire people groups, never given a fair chance to know the truth. God sees them standing alone in the dark, and His heart aches to rescue them. It also aches to rescue the victims they torment.
Defeat the evil to save the person
He was reminding me, once again, that while we should fight the evil people commit in the world, we should also fight to rescue them from the evil they themselves are victims of. Just like all of us, they are both perpetrators of evil and victims of it. Our goal must be to defeat the evil in order to save the person.
God doesn’t want the lost defeated, annihilated, or destroyed. He wants them rescued. If we could see the way He feels about them, the way He desperately loves His creation, it would change the way we fight.
We must push back the darkness. We must be the salt of the earth that holds back the rot. We must be the standard that rises when the enemy comes in like a flood (Isaiah 59:19). But we must do it wholly motivated by God’s love for His creation, even those committing the evil.
Only love can truly defeat evil.
