Not the Kind You Kill

I've been realizing something very big, and one phrase sums it up pretty well.

If you watch a lot of action movies and read a lot of Scripture, you quickly begin to run into some contradictions.

Like any kid, I've daydreamed of being an action hero - smashing through panes of glass and dropping fifteen feet to down one crook, giving another a jaw-crushing uppercut, backflipping to avoid a third crumb's kick, and delivering a whirling kick of my own right into his solar plexus. And naturally, I would save someone. Likely a girl. I'd be a hero with my quick moves.

Adrenaline is pretty intense.

But after lots of Scripture reading, studying the Bible and studying the ways of God, I've started to understand things in a different light. Actually, I'm rather embarrassed of my action movie and adrenaline-fueled ways of thinking, and I'm starting to view it as rather wrong.

There are really no bad guys. Not the kind you shoot at and punch and chop and kill, anyway.
We're all bad guys, really. We're all just out to feed our own selfish selves. We're all out to snub other people to make ourselves feel better. We're all just out in total opposition to God. Like my pastor says, with every sin, we try to kill God.

But the main thing I've been realizing is that those who would be portrayed as "villains" in action movies - villains to be attacked and decimated without regret - are just people. People every bit as real as you and me. People who have hurts and pains and desires. People with the Imago dei, the Image of God.

People Jesus died for.

That's how I hope to change my mindset. I am hoping and praying that if anyone ever pulls a fast one on me - stealing my money or kidnapping my friends - I will be able to do the same thing Jesus would do, the same thing Jesus did do for those who "pulled a fast one" on Him.

He loved them.

I hope and pray that I will be able to see everyone as valuable in God's eyes. I hope that I will be overcome with the beautiful love God has for people. And if anyone tries to "pull a fast one" on me, I hope I will not use him as a human punching bag like the action movies say to do.

I hope that I can show him the hope that I've found. It seems so right and so Jesus to witness to someone who's just wronged you. Because I could be there, in his shoes, by all rights a villain. Actually, I guess I am.

No human is so degraded that he is a punching bag to be kicked, shoved, and spit on. Every human deserves it, but that's what grace is all about.