The Divergent book series by Veronica Roth is one of my favorite book series because it presents an interesting thought about human nature. For those who haven’t read it, the series is about a dystopian society that wants to be a utopian society so badly that they attempt to correct people's genes and make perfect people.
"But when the genetic manipulations began to take effect, the alterations had disastrous consequences. As it turns out, the attempt had resulted not in corrected genes, but in damaged ones. Take away someone's fear, or low intelligence, or dishonesty...and you take away their compassion. Take away someone's aggression and you take away their motivation, or their ability to assert themselves. Take away their selfishness and you take away their sense of self-preservation."
So what does this have to do with God and our lives? Let's go back to the beginning...
"In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it." (John 1:1-5 NIV)
This verse is another version of the creation story. It all begins with God lighting up the darkness and then everything else stemmed from that light. Darkness is defined as the absence of light so darkness can't exist without light. Similarly, as the quote above mentions, fear, dishonesty, aggression, and selfishness can't exist without compassion, motivation, and self-preservation. When humanity fell to temptation in the garden, the tree wasn’t just the knowledge of evil in the world, but of good and evil. Evil couldn’t exist without also the knowledge of good. God’s plan didn’t leave us hopeless.
2 Corinthians 4:6 says “For God, who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of God’s glory displayed in the face of Christ.”
God is the light in our lives that combats the knowledge of evil that is inside us and out in the world and helps us shine His light into the world so that everyone may see the good of the world.
So I’m going to get a little grammatically technical now, but I really like how the John verse ends: "...and the darkness has not overcome it." The rest of the verse is written in past tense until that last sentence. Then it is in the present-perfect tense which means it started in the past and hasn't ended yet. It's reassuring to know that even when we stumble and let the darkness get to us, God's light will be there.
John 8:12: When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.”
We are sinful people and all have "damaged" genes/characteristics/feelings that we have to deal with sometimes, but without them we wouldn't know the good side of life either. We wouldn't understand the feelings of joy, happiness, contentment, compassion, motivation, or love. We can’t get rid of the knowledge of evil in this world, but as long as we keep our eyes and hearts on Jesus and strive for perfection, the darkness won’t overcome us.
- Raye H.
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