Playing for Keeps

I was watching "I Shouldn't Be Alive" and this particular couple was stranded in a beautiful but desolate part of the US. The scenery was breathtaking and I was thinking that had I seen that particular view, it would have invoked thoughts of transcendence and grandeur and vastness and wonderfulness pertaining to our God. And had this couple eaten within the last 5 days, they also would probably have had a similar reaction.

But this breathtaking place was literally taking the "breath" from this couple - they were dying. It was not feeding them and it was not taking care of them and it literally did not care that they existed. Indeed, in just a few days, they would die.

So we pick and choose the messages nature gives us and we say, "This nature, this is our God". But we might do well to receive the whole message that nature gives us and that is that "evil" or the absence of compassion must be "managed" and managed well because it plays for keeps.

Our technology manages this absence of compassion in nature. We also must learn to protect ourselves from the absence of compassion in those around us. We must learn to manage evil around us - they also play for keeps.