Overcome Evil with Good
By Meg Lund

You may have noticed that ever since you've been serious on your spiritual journey, you get persecutions from the oddest places. People say strange and offensive things to you, you seem to be cut off in traffic or have people on your tail in rage, you have people hating you for no apparent reason, you have people stealing from you, taking advantage of you, slandering you, etc., etc. You may wonder why it seems that there is so much more of this than you ever remember prior to your conversion.

As a Christian, we are exhorted to return good for evil, to not try to get revenge, nor to even try and get what was ours back. If they've taken from us, let them have it... no, give them even more. Do not take them to court, do not throttle them until they pay us back, do not shout to the world that we have been stolen from. There isn't an exception made for people who have stolen from us but don't really need it, or for a case where we ourselves may be lacking, or any other reason. Pure and simple, if we are intruded upon, invaded, insulted, or sinned against in any way, we are to "allow" that evil to injure us, and accept that evil as Jesus accepted the lashes of his scourging, the indignation of his crowning with thorns and stripping, the total injustice of his crucifixion.

WHY??? Because this is how we will overcome evil in humanity. We must rejoice when evil is directed at us, because in us, united with Him, it will end. On the other hand, if evil is done to someone who is not united with Christ, who is spiritually immature or not at all aware of their calling as a human being, that evil will become magnified and will continue from generation to generation, across families, communities and nations. It grows like a wave, until it hits a true Christian, where it becomes dissipated. This is why a single Saint can do so much to relieve the world of evil. Let evil end with us.

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"Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good" -Romans 12:20-21