Did you know that every color we see finds its source in the same place? Each individual color is a result of white light — the light we get from the sun, which contains the entire light spectrum — hitting an object and some specific wavelength of the light spectrum bouncing off. Every different color has its source in the same white light.
All around us, all the time, we get glimpses of goodness. Wisdom is found in all sorts of unlikely places. Love is found in all different types of people. What if all these glimpses of goodness, these inklings of wisdom, these actions of love are all just some wavelength of the goodness of God bouncing off the world He created? If there really were a God who created the world, who was the author of all good things, wouldn’t that goodness be evident all throughout the world? Wouldn’t his wisdom be seen, at least in part, throughout multiple different belief systems, social groups, and civilizations? If God is the author of goodness, the author of wisdom, the author of love, then when we see goodness, wisdom, and love, we ought to recognize that we are seeing something that is godly.
We tend to dismiss the good things in a person because of the things we see that don’t line up. As Christians, we tend to dismiss things that come out of the mouths of people who aren’t Christians. If they don’t hold as their highest value what we hold as our highest value, can we really take what they say seriously? I would like to propose, however, that if an atheist speaks about loving your neighbor (they may word it differently: Coexist; BLM; loveislove; etc), they are still bringing the light of God into the world, whether they want to or not, whether they would agree or not. The way they do it may be like white light reflecting off another surface. We may see Blue when, as Christians, we would like to see the full White light of God, but the Blue still has its source in the White, and the Blue is still better than darkness.
This isn’t an argument to accept all things as Christian or as godly. There will always be things that non-Christian culture will say is wisdom and is love but goes against scripture. Scripture is our guide. Let me be very clear about that. However, I do want to recognize that if the world is God’s, and if He created humanity in His image, then His fingerprint will be all over the place and on all kinds of humans. He made a big, wide world with all kinds of people, and His goodness and love can be found in every nook and cranny. If we can’t accept the truth that we are called to love our neighbors regardless of their nationality, regardless of their religion, regardless of whether or not it is safe, even though the Bible specifically calls us to* because that truth was heard from the mouth (or tweet, or Facebook post) of somebody who aligns themselves on the opposite end of the political spectrum from us, we are ignoring God’s truth. If we can’t hear truth, if we can’t accept wisdom, if we can’t love unless it comes packaged in a way that is comfortable to us, we are allowing darkness, not light, to reign in the world.
Every different instance of goodness, wisdom, and love has its source in the same author of goodness, wisdom, and love. As Christians, we should take the responsibility to make sure that we don’t mistake the part for the whole, but we should also take the responsibility to make sure we don’t dismiss the part as nothing at all. Not only will this help us to see God at work in so many new ways around us, but will also help us get out of the way and let Him go on, unhindered, bringing his goodness and wisdom and love into a broken world.
The Endeavor 