Growing Up Means Awakening To Evil
The naive humanist I used to be could never have fathomed the level of evil that many people are capable of and carry out daily
I was naive. Super naive about how the world worked.
The level of evil that certain people are capable of is beyond what the typical atheist can fathom. These are people who know God is real, yet they're so possessed by evil that they commit it deliberately—and may even relish it.
I had coffee with a new friend Mike today—a Wall Street veteran who came to Christ four years ago after becoming disillusioned with the world of high finance, and then witnessing pure evil through his anti-child trafficking work. He shared something that crystallized what I've been processing: "The system doesn't operate on truth—it operates on leverage."
That's the seat of evil. When truth becomes secondary to power, when people weaponize lower-case truths (and appeal to other people's moralities) to get ahead while abandoning capital-T Truth (in Christ), you get systems designed to profit from human weakness.
My biggest mistake was thinking I could reason with people of bad (satanic) faith. I assumed almost everyone cared roughly about truth, beauty, and goodness the way Christ defines them. I thought if I explained things clearly enough, hearts would change.
But evil people don't operate from those definitions. They use Christian language while serving different masters. They profit from innocence destruction. They build systems that monetize sin while wearing crosses.
You cannot blanket assume that other people have your heart, especially as your heart becomes more like Christ's. A single evil person can disrupt massive amounts of effort that good people put into real work.
The solution isn't better arguments—it's understanding what actually moves them. As Mike learned from his Wall Street days: if you want the system to move toward truth, you have to hurt their power.
Evil responds to leverage, not logic. To consequences, not conversations. To threats to their money supply, not appeals to their conscience.
This isn't cynicism—it's wisdom. Christ calls us to be as wise as serpents. We must learn to speak the language that evil actually understands: power and money.
The path forward requires building autonomous platforms that don't depend on compromised institutions. Structure your life so you can be truthful regardless of external pressure. Create your own box to stand on, then expand it.
With that foundation in place, choose your circles wisely.
Cultivate relationships with people who demonstrate the fruit of the Spirit, not just Christian language. Work with those who show genuine transformation, not religious performance.
Most importantly, stop projecting your good intentions onto people operating from different foundations. Growing up spiritually means accepting that some people simply serve different masters (Matthew 6:24).
The narrow path is narrow for a reason. But for those willing to walk it with eyes wide open, there's real hope—hope that builds on rock rather than wishful thinking.
"Be wise as serpents and innocent as doves." — Matthew 10:16