What crime are you capable of?

In the fictional world of novels and movies, there are goodies and baddies. The tension of the plot depends on the audience unravelling who the bad guys are and engaging with the good guys.

In real life, it's not quite like that. Jesus said, 'Only God is good.' That leaves all the rest of us lumped with the baddies - capable of any crime, including the thing we most condemn in 'the bad guys.'

What makes someone turn that potential for crime into reality? It's recognised that mental illness can influence decisions, by distorting perceptions and making the person believe, for instance, that they are under threat from somebody who in fact doesn't want to harm them. The influence of drugs can also affect perceptions and therefore decisions.

People may also be spiritually ill. Much less is understood about that.

But people who are ill, in any way, may not always stay ill. God can and does heal. Lives change. The goodness of God can override the evil that anyone is capable of.

So some people who have done terrible things - considered by the public to be definite 'baddies' or 'monsters' - can and do become overwhelmed by the reality and goodness of God, start trusting him with their lives, and start doing good stuff.

And some people who have always counted themselves among the 'good guys' may become over-confident in their own power to resist being harmful to others and to themselves and may slide into making allowances for moral slips and justifying dubious actions, till they suddenly find themselves doing something they would never have thought they would sink to.

So, how in real life do we tell who are the good guys and who are the bad guys? And how sure are you that you are one or the other?

God knows. The God who, alone among all of us, is good.

Money money money?

It's tempting to think that if only we had oodles of cash, half the world's problems could be solved - all those starving children fed, vital medication supplied, the neighbours' rent paid, the homeless housed ....

But in reality, having or giving money on its own isn't the answer.

A great quote from Amy Carmichael, a missionary from Belfast, was:

'You can give without loving but you can't love without giving.'

Giving financial aid without love leaves the recipients out in the cold: it's a handout without a heart.

What's needed is generous hearts, even if the sums of money don't seem spectacular.

It takes warmth for lives to grow - both the giver's and the receiver's.

So I'm not praying to win the lottery, but to learn to love - not the sentimental, sorry-for-you kind of love, but the kind that can't help giving the best it has to offer.

Working worshipfully

In a recent article in the Telegraph, Hannah Betts described Jamie Oliver, Mary Portas, Gok Wan, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Kirsty Allsopp as 'secular evangelists.'

A way of saying, I guess, that they do what Christian evangelists do - spread good news that others may not have experienced yet - but that their message is 'secular,' not religious.

And it's true that even if you're not personally enthused by their particular passion -nutrition, self-sufficiency, business or whatever it is - to watch someone follow their passion and use it to encourage people gives us a glimpse of their vision and shows us another dimension of our familiar society.

So these guys, and others, are certainly evangelizing - but what's secular about it?

The word 'enthusiasm' means 'filled with God.'

The earliest Christian evangelists had a saying, 'To work is to pray.'

Jesus said, 'I came to bring life in the full,' and work is a major part of a full human life, whether paid or voluntary, domestic or public.

Therefore, the way you work is the way you pray. With energy and enthusiasm, or grudgingly?With the motive of sharing your best self to enhance other people's lives, or with the aim of keeping the best to yourself and pushing others away?

Work on. We're on sacred ground.