Be An Overcomer...With Good

"Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."  Romans 12:21

On Sunday, Shana got into a spat about something completely unimportant with another little girl at church.  While both of them were in the right, I was struck by Shana's immediate adversarial response toward the other girl.

As we sat down with them to break them apart and debrief the spat, we found out that this major disagreement was over nothing better than Goldfish, you know, of the cracker variety.

As this verse popped up on my phone Monday as my verse of the day, I was dumbfounded with how much I see this in my own life.  Assuming the worst, I respond to situations as if the other person doesn't have my best interest at heart.  I approach situations as if scarcity rules, not as a follower of the Most High God who has every need already sewn up.  I see adversity as an inevitable block to the path that I think lays out my life.

In Luke 22:31, Jesus warns Peter that satan himself wants to "sift [him] like wheat."  In other places, we see that satan is described as a thief and a lion looking for someone to devour.  In some ways, I think this description is completely tied to Paul's admonition to the Roman church to watch out how they respond to adversity.

Rather than see what happens to us as another sign that someone is out to get us, or as someone to combat, or as evidence that things just never are going to go our way, Paul is reminding us, today, that God is still in charge and nothing happens without His knowledge and power.  Jesus told Peter to be mindful of the one who wants to challenge him and bring him down, but to maintain his faith in Jesus.

"Do not be overcome with evil, but overcome evil with good."  Prayer, the first ultimate weapon, is combined with lovingkindness toward others, and even toward situations we face.  It is easy to let evil overcome us as we try to battle the daily distractions and the lurking situations we face.  It is easy to combat those things with what we have and know, and let evil overtake us.  I think that evil is an outlook on life that causes us to forget Whom we trust.

Overcome evil with good.  My friend Scott Savell, an Air Force chaplain, writes, "it's a passive verb when speaking of the evil, but active when speaking of the good."  This is important to note.  Overcoming evil with good means intentionally approaching life remembering God is in charge, assigning His mindset over our situations, and choosing to be loving and kind, as He is, toward those situations and people we face.

Colossians 3:14 says, "and over all these things put on love, which binds [a list of virtues found in Colossians 3:12-13] together in perfect unity."

Approach the situations you face with goodness in your heart.  Overcome that evil which desires to entangle you with the love of Christ.  Combat the outlook which regards everything as adversity with goodness which is victorious in the midst of strife.