Good and Bad People

Jehoshaphat was thirty-five years old when he began to reign, and he reigned twenty-five years in Jerusalem. . . He walked in all the way of Asa his father. He did not turn aside from it, doing what was right in the sight of the LORD. Yet the high places were not taken away, and the people still sacrificed and made offerings on the high places. 1 Kings 22:42

In Urgent Care, I meet more than 100 people a week. Not all of them are new faces, but each one brings a new medical complaint. With so many complaints, it’s not easy to remember specific medical problems. This is probably something of a blessing though. When I see a patient in clinic on Saturday and then run into that same patient in church on Sunday, I’m thankful that I don’t remember the details of his (or her) stomach flu. It’s not that I don’t remember anything though. For better or worse, I tend to recall emotional experiences – I remember how I feel about a patient. For instance, when I run into someone I’ve not seen in clinic for six months, I have zero memory of what I saw them for, but I will remember if our last interaction was generally good or bad. Based on that feeling then, I often place people into one of two categories: good person or bad person.

I know this isn’t fair or even right, but it’s my nature and it doesn’t just involve medical interactions. I do this in almost every area of life. For instance, I did it yesterday while reading about Jehoshaphat, king of Judah. In my mind, there were good kings of Israel and Judah and there were bad kings. So in preparation for today’s blog, I looked this up – Was Jehoshaphat a good or bad king? If you look up the same, you’ll find that Jehoshaphat didn’t do all good or all bad. He followed God in some things, but he also allowed idol-worship to continue.

I don’t believe I’m alone in my black and white categories. As Christians, it’s easy to divide the world into believers and nonbelievers – the good and the bad. Though this is tempting, it’s far from accurate. When someone comes to faith, he (or she) isn’t instantly transformed into a better person. He is simply forgiven. God’s love and truth are supposed to change that person from the inside out, but we’ve all known Christians who’ve done terrible things and we’ve all known nonbelievers who’ve done wonderful things.

It would be a terrible mistake to think that, because I claim faith, that I’m one of the good people and as such, incapable of evil. Good and bad come from the decisions I make each day. If I follow myself, I’m going to choose evil, even while claiming to follow Christ. Daily then, if I don’t want to be a hypocrite, I must make my actions follow my words. That is authentic faith.