Proverbs 17, 20. He who is a crooked mind finds
no good, and he who is perverted in his language
falls into evil. What you expect is what you
get. In that, if your mind is want to do bad
things, then you will see bad things everywhere
you look. Thieves expect thieves, liars expect
lies, and so on. Moreover, those whose mouths
spew venom ensure that they will eventually do
evil. But there's something more. A mind like
this and a mouth like this can actually change
good into bad. I've seen people who've been part
of a great victory and they feel compelled to
say something and that something then ruins the
victory. Sometimes there is nothing to say and
saying something when there is nothing to say
is sort of an evil of its own. TV and social
media makes it look like the world is a wicked
place full of people who will snatch you up and
violently abuse you. But that's not actually
true. Most people are just trying to do good.
It just happens that their version of good is
one of their own making rather than the one that
God has laid out. When we let Jesus make us whole,
violent storms no longer find their home in us,
and a man finds it less challenging to see and
speak good in the world, which, of course, is
all the more important because, as this verse
points out, those who speak evil in turn do evil.
Be good, see good, speak good, do good is the
way of the living, and we are no longer dead
in our trespasses and sins, so it should be our
way.