Overcoming

I had a unique relationship with my father-in-law. I met him before I met my wife, Ann. He was a wonderful man of faith, although he had a tendency to stick me with the bill when we ate out. I still loved the man. Anyhow, we were talking one afternoon about the nature of man and Scripture. His position was that man was inherently evil based on Scripture. I took the losing argument that I believed man was inherently good. I have often heard that we live in an evil world and that you have to watch your back at all times. Our job is to overcome the bad things in our lives. We can do this by doing good things, even when no one is looking. Let me share an example with you.

My daughter and I had gone shopping. I parked the car, and as we were walking into the store, we noticed a man walking some distance in front of us. As we followed him into the store, we came across money that had fallen from his pocket. It was about $75. My daughter picked it up and looked at me, smiling and saying, “We’re rich.” As she handed me the money, I told her, “No, we are not rich. Let’s go find the man in the store and let him know he dropped it.”

After some effort, we finally tracked the man down in the back of the store. I gave the money to my daughter to give back to him. As she handed him the money, he thanked her for being honest. She told me she was glad she had done it. Old Dad was having an evil moment in his life, thinking, “If we had just kept it, think of all the things we could have bought.” I had to overcome my evil temptation. I wanted to be a good role model for my daughter, but I wasn’t being a good model for myself.

We all have things in our lives that we need to overcome. My daughter’s innocence and trust led me to do the right thing. Each day, we face choices that God places before us. Are we willing to overcome the evil in our lives? To do so makes this world a wonderful place to live—for you and for others you encounter, that is because God loves you!