Just Pure Evil

Several weeks ago Ft.Hood was attacked by a crazed gunman spewing the words of Allah.
What would make any person pick up a gun and shoot innocent people for an ideal?
Saturday night while watching Mike Huckabee he had a woman on whose daughter was a reporter for the Little Rock local news station.
Because of her daughters new work hours she asked her mother to call at 5am to make sure she was up.
When the mother called no one answered after several more attempts she drove to the daughters house and found the back door opened.When she entered the daughters bedroom she found her on the bed bleeding from the neck unable to speak.
The mother called 911 to get help and went back to sit with her dying daughter.
The rescue team came into the room,the mother,who felt helpless decided to pray,as she tilted her head up she saw blood splatter all over the ceiling.
She said at that moment I thought to my self "This is pure evil".
Her 26 year old daughter died as a result of her blood loss and injuries,caused from her desperate attempt to fight off her attacker.
The mother said has she was going through her daughters computer she found bible verses every where.Her daughter was truly a good christian who shined out Gods' peace and love and because of this everyone wanted to be near her.
This mother was right maybe we face good and evil all the time.The better a person is the closer evil tries to come near them eventually trying to destroy them.
I think evil is like a drug.The more you use it the bigger the thrill and excitement is but also the bigger the guilt that follows.
Drug addicts start out liking the drug then for the rest of their lives they try to chase the dragon to get that same first thrill.The deeper an addict gets the more the thrill turns into an agony.Never able to recapture that first innocent high.It just becomes a need not an excitement.
Evil is probably the same way.You no longer need the high you need the fix.
Nothing you do can be bad enough until you take some one out with you.
The Our Father prayer,which is pretty universal to most christian religions, has a line that says "lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one."
Most people do not understand the difference between God and the devil.
God loves us, he cares about us and strives to help us.He is ever reaching out to us and ever forgiving us ever calling us to him for our own good.
The Evil one,has we Orthodox Christians call him,has no real personal attachment with us nor does he desire one.His aim is only to steal us away from God.He is not there to help make things better for us nor does he even know us but he does know God and he does have a personal grudge against him.So we become his pawn in what he sees as an ultimate game of domination.
Evil is always all around us and is used to try to pull us away from God.No matter how long you have or have not been a Christian you are always up for grabs.
I tend to think the Evil One knows our weaknesses and tries to play on them.If were religious he tries to turn things making us feel we need to be zealots for the cause.
Some one like the shooter at Ft. Hood or the man who killed Dr.tiller the abortion doctor in his church lobby have this mind set.They become so deluded they miss the point of what being a Christian or Muslim is all about.
Fr.Peter once told me if you feel guilt,anger,or any thing but peace and love it is probably not from God but from the other guy.
There is a reason why in the Our Father prayer we ask God to lead not into temptation but deliver us from evil.
This is a lesson we need to learn if we leave it to our selves we lose our path.We always need Gods' presence to remind us when where veering toward the gutter.We are never with out temptations and we always need a firm,loving and guiding hand to keep us on the right path.