Will evil prevail?

That was the title of this presentation at TED.

As I mentioned earlier, most, if not all of the great presentations at TED are sadly, godless, humanistic talks.

Still, if you are a Christian, it may be worth watching this presentation as a reminder for the complexity and the urgency of dealing with the evil in this world.
I want to remind you, however, that you shouldn't let this kind of ideas, great and inspiring as they are, to dominate your thinking. Phillip Jensen once said, "you shouldn't interpret the bible with your understanding of the world around you, but you ought to interpret the world through your understanding of the bible." Let the Word of God be the guide, yard-stick, the discernment giving source in your engagement with the world and people.

Horrible things are happening all around the world, in Sydney, and also within my heart.

A Sydney Morning Herald article reports what is going on in an African country. But what is more horrible is our ability to ignore such things. From the article:

During the war here, just one silver back was killed. And when it happened, within 48 hours millions in funding was sent to ensure the rest of the gorilla population was protected. Why isn't the same done with our women? I'll tell you why, because in the eyes of the international community animals have more value than humans in this part of the world.

What is described in the article is seriously horrific. But I feel so helpless as I know I am more than capable of ignoring such evil.

While I was waiting for Hanoh at Strathfield today, I saw a homeless man lying on the concrete floor outside the station. He was just lying there. People were not giving much attention to him, and only when they come within steps from him, they would be surprised and walk around to avoid coming too close to him. They were all so good at ignoring him. It seemed that only few steps were required to forget about a man lying on a street seemingly helplessly.

To most of us, he is kind of known. We know he hangs around the area and he is a homeless person. He was probably sleeping, or maybe even drunk...

Or... was he sick? Was he silently suffering some kind of pain? Did he lose consciousness because of some kind of illness? Or... was he dead?

I have no idea. I thought about going near him and check and see if he was ok, and even offer him help and talk to him about Jesus. But I only kept on looking at him... from a distance. I never had enough gut to go near him and see if he was not in some kind of urgent medical need. I never offered him help. I was just watching him from distance and listened to Hymns with my iPod. Oh, I use my iPod to listen to Hymns and Christian music, even sermons, I must be Christian! Wretched, disgusting hypocrite I am.

God, mercy!