Criminal

Once in a while someone says something that sticks in your mind and won’t go away.
I was talking to a committed Christian whose brother is involved in petty – or actually, not so petty – crime.
I commented that it must be hard, seeing your brother go down that path.
He said it was no harder than seeing him in a nine-to-five job and living in a three-bed semi, if he didn’t know God.
And that keeps niggling away at me: why assume that outward respectability makes a person any closer to God than outward criminality?
After all, if I’m not living God’s will for my life, then he is not my God – even if I believe I believe he is!
Even if I was doing lots of stuff that looked good, felt good and even did people good –apparently – if it wasn’t what God was asking me to do, I’d be no closer to him than if I was selling drugs or stolen goods or cheating defenceless people.
I’d be cheating on a God who chooses to be defenceless against my free choice.
And that surely would be a terrible waste of life.
Criminal, even.