Why do we tend to think of evil as something people get away with? Like it has inherently established rewards, but evil only has negative consequences when it’s caught or external justice is brought.
This is a murky perception.
Does evil not have inherently bad consequences too? Just because someone gains material reward or success through unchecked evil… does that mean they get away with something? Like doing evil has benefited them?!
Is an evil heart a lucky one if it never gets caught? Is an evil heart privileged in any way by the evil it pursues?
We lose sight of the fact that the one thing that matters most throughout all of life is our hearts. Our hearts is where our joy and grief come from. Our hearts are what are healthy or troubled. Our hearts dictate our happiness.
I use the term heart here as that emotional response of the brain. (No I don’t actually believe our physical heart is where love is stored)
And if love is based in freedom and choice... And if God has given us freedom to choose to love him because that’s what love really is... And if we choose to love him we connect our hearts more with him... And when our hearts are connected more to him we find greater joy, peace, and strength and love…. Don’t we believe that God is the source of joy and love? And that love and joy are the only way to live a fulfilling life?
Then wouldn’t the opposite be true?
If God has given us the freedom to choose him he’s also given us the freedom to not choose him… Wouldn’t then when we choose evil we abandon God? Wouldn’t when we abandon God our hearts suffer from the separation? Wouldn’t that suffering evoke all sorts of emotions that would inherently discipline the evil we choose? Like paranoia? Fear? Anger? Jealousy? Dissatisfaction? Lust? And if we believe that God is the source of joy and love... wouldn’t when we not choose him we miss out on joy and love? Which we believe is the only fulfilling way to live a life?
How is that not punishment for evil?
Sure people don’t always realize they’re being punished. And so it may not feel like a punishment until they realize what’s happening to them.
But anybody who has slept easy at night or feels their hearts welling up with compassion or wants nothing more because they are completely satisfied with what they have knows that there is no other way to truly live.
The gift of life is in doing good and choosing God. And guess what…. We don’t realize that as a reward in itself all the time either. Because we see other people do evil and then demand external justice because we feel like they got away with something better. Like external and material rewards are the most important part of life! It seems we actually believe that!
It takes work to do good. And people don’t like to do work and not see benefits and rewards. But damnit look around and realize the rewards that are implicit in the hard work it takes to do good to begin with.
Nobody gets away with evil.
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