Friday, December 30, 2011

Good Guys, Bad Guys

"I seen bad men do good things and I've seen good men do bad things."


Sometimes, the good guys do really bad things. For some reason, they're still good though. I don't know why that is. A bad guy can do as many good things as he wants- had can do good things all day long!- but he will still be a bad guy.

This kind of surfaced this week while I was with my friends. Some of my friends are good kids and some of them are really bad. That's always the way it is. In every group there are "good kids" and "bad kids." It's not like the bad kids are going to bomb my school tomorrow or anything. I'm talking social preditors. I'm talking kids who are really messed up inside.

So there we were all together and then one of the "good guys" (I really like him, he's such a great kid) cracks one of the worst jokes I have ever heard in my life. I thought to myself, "So how is it that a good guy can get away with saying somthing like that and still be good?"

The good kids and the bad kids- we're all the same. We're all equally screwed up on the inside. We are each totally soaked in our sins. The "good guys," such as they are, say, think, feel, and do the same bad things that the "bad guys" do.

But, something sets them apart.

I can only figure that one is conscious of the moral law and the other is not. We all break the moral law all the time. Good guys are aware of it, bad guys just don't care.

3 comments:

  1. This marks an unusual occasion: I am compelled to post a comment disagreeing with you.
    Good guys and bad guys are not the same at all! the difference between them is sometimes as you mentioned, that both are aware of the moral law and one chooses to ignore it, but sometimes it is more complex than that: occasionally, a bad guy will set up his own moral law and abide as faithfully by it as you and I do by the one we know.
    The feelings and thoughts of good guys and bad guys are fundamentally dissimilar. Bad guys are self-obsessed; good guys have an awareness of others. Bad guys need power like they need to breathe, and they will hurt people to get it. Good guys are more complicated, but I think the main thing that sets them apart is the ability to care about other people in a way that does not involve their own agenda. A bad guy will do a good thing if it benefits him. A good guy does it because he can't live with himself if he doesn't.
    Anyway, your blog is still AWESOME. I really love that poem about A Hole Not Meant for Me. I hope you don't mind if I link to it on Facebook. :)

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  2. I forgot to mention how COMPLETELY AWESOME Daniel Craig is, especially in a cowboy hat! Swoon! Best. picture. ever.

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  3. Hmmmm, some good points Andrea. But even good guys are selfish sometimes. I'm not talking about the kind of good guys you find in fictional stories, though, even though Daniel Craige IS AWSOME! I'm talking about the good guys in REAL LIFE.

    Goods guys do stupid things sometimes. Good guys skrew up. But, they repent at least. They are humble. As you so fabulously put it they have "the ability to care about people in a way that does not involve their own agenda."

    That compassion you mentioned is certainly something that I missed in my post.

    "Do not rebuke a mocker or he will hate you. Rebuke a wize man and he will love you." Prov. 9:8

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My quick report
Your tender rebuke
Three wise-men