I Hate What Is Good

In my writing, I normally make it up as I go along, in fact, I’m doing it right now, but this stops my brain from trying to plan everything out. I write in the heat of the moment because if I don’t, I get jammed and can’t even manage to write a single word. So, in light of this writing is a very difficult skill for me, especially when it isn’t something that I can just pour a bunch of facts into. Due to this complication, papers about my own reflections don’t come easy to me. It doesn’t help that half of the time I feel as if there is nothing to reflect on, there should be, but I just don’t feel anything when I read. All emotion and the stuff that gives writing a true meaning isn’t there. This is true for everything I have read, except Blue
Like Jazz. I have to admit, it feels really weird. Mercy is hard. Matthew says “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.” (Matthew 5:7) If someone walked up to you and asked you to shoot them, you probably wouldn’t. If someone walked up and asked you to shoot Osama Bin Laden, that is a much harder question, at least to me. I’m not sure if it should be easy or difficult, it seems like the easy answer is to shoot out of vengeance for what he has done to the world. I think back to a chapel that we had some time last year, it was a video. It was a video about the murderer and the leader of rebellions, who was saved, his punishment was instead put on an innocent man. The man’s name was Barabbas. It may be the music in the background or the good editing of the video, but the video connects to the heart. God does the hardest thing, he shows mercy to seven billion sinners who aren’t worthy of any love at all. In the situation we shouldn’t shoot Osama Bin Laden, because if he deserves it we deserve just as much. Barabbas takes the freedom he doesn’t deserve and he doesn’t have the sense to even thank his savior. I still don’t know if I would shoot Bin Laden, and that scares me. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth. An old saying that has been around longer than all of us, for the longest I didn’t get what it meant. Don’t question what you are given, but now I disagree with this saying. We should ask why we we receive the gifts we don’t deserve. Why do I get blessings when many people before deserve it ten times more than I do. I think God gives these gifts to us not because we deserve them, but because he wants us to use these gifts to help us do better. To be more like him, and to make those around us better. Donald Miller has a great gift, he has the ability to influence the life of random teenagers that have no idea what they are doing. In a way he is regifting what God has given him, he is giving faith. Faith to all of the people who read his story and are inspired, he has saved lives. I feel guilty because I rarely give gifts, I have been trying to change that ever since I started reading Blue Like Jazz. I want to use the gifts that God has given me to save others and to maybe, just maybe, save someone. Everyone on this Earth seems to have some good in them.
The amount could be so miniscule and seem so insignificant, but there always seems to be a reason for what someone has done or they have been corrupted. Romans says “Love must be sincere. Hate what is evil; cling to what is good.” (Romans 12:9) It may be such a small amount of good, but we have to grasp it and not let it fade. We, as human beings, cannot allow goodness to disappear from a person’s heart. The good in people is really shown in media, when the villain who is hated and feared shows why they did what they did. I really like the way Breaking Bad displays this trait. In the first season, Walter and Jesse have Krazy Eight, a drug dealer, kept prisoner. While Krazy Eight is kept prisoner, Walter and Jesse flip a coin to choose who has to kill Krazy Eight, otherwise they will have a witness to their other crimes. Walter is chosen to kill Krazy Eight, however he struggles with this because he learns about the softer side of the criminal. It is something as insignificant as buying a bassinet from Krazy Eight’s family furniture store; it makes a connection between the two characters. This connection is corrupted, however when Krazy Eight hides a piece of a broken plate to kill Walter when he gets the chance. This action makes Walter ignore the good in Krazy Eight to protect himself, so he has to kill
him. Romans and Matthew have many connections between them. It is easy to ignore such connections, dismiss them like they don’t matter. No matter what, we should never dismiss the Bible and what it says; it is a guide on life and we are just a bunch of confused monkeys without it. If such a day ever comes, that would be disastrous; the bad thing is many if not most people disregard what the Bible has to offer. That is truly terrifying.