why (and how) goodness overcomes

I have a great Wednesday afternoon announcement for you. Grab your coffee, sit somewhere pleasant, and let the truth of these words run into every desert place in your soul and take root as you feel the rain of His abundance.

You don’t have to stay in spiritual survival.

He is too good for that.

And goodness actually overcomes evil my friends.

The entire created world around us streaming with fresh springs and bird songs and dazzling sunsets was put there to draw us to something transcendent but we forget to actually see it some days. Evil and pain is easier for us to see and feel and it becomes the most powerful force in our minds. Caught up in an avalanche of rejection, disappointment, and hurt we cave to living small and dismal lives of gossip and criticism to protect ourselves. Listening to stories of trauma, watching the news, recoiling with the raw pain of betrayal and accusation we try to process it all to keep ourselves healthy but understanding bad things about people and churches and families and our personal chaos will not overcome the pain. It will only make us more aware, which can be good for a season but will never provide joy for a lifetime.

We need something that transcends badness to bring lasting goodness.

The Holy Spirit is the hand of God in the world since Genesis 1:2 hovering above us, whispering within us— always creating and restoring and breathing about new life. It is His powerful touch of goodness that overcomes every effect of evil around us and in us. He is the lungs of our spiritual life. That’s why our words guided by the Spirit can drip into the most hardened soul and bring to life the dead bones of bad experience, and why those who have suffered physical abuse need the gentle touch of a healing hand to believe that touch can be beautiful. It’s also why there is no substitute for a robust and healthy pneumatology (doctrine of the Holy Spirit) in the church today.

The devil has a hand in the world and all he touches becomes destruction. He doesn’t create or bring life to anything but he is real and active as he roves about devouring. People feel him, hear him, see him, and sometimes his presence and voice is the only reality they know. Many individuals have real and supernatural experiences with the devil. They know his voice very well.

We all need to feel, hear, and see the hand of God in the world to overcome the real work of the devil. This power is given to us through the Spirit of God who was sent to guide, teach, and empower us for the work of making goodness known to the world. The Spirit of God often reveals Himself through experiences of goodness that overcome the devil and bring hope into despair.

This is why downplaying, underestimating, and under-emphasising the powerful Spirit of God and the beautiful gifts of the Spirit given for the life of the church is powerfully detrimental for holistic healing. What if the supernatural Spirit of God is the only thing that can overcome the supernatural effects of the devil and we’re too afraid to walk with Him in faith? 

What if those who have suffered from extreme evil experiences actually need an emotional experience with the person of goodness? Fear is a real emotion. What if God wants to give an emotion that overcomes it?

What if the voice of fear and accusation is so loud in our ears we have not learned to know the voice of God? When all we can speak is head wagging, brow-furrowing, sad-ness inducing comments about danger and deception we might need to learn the gentle voice of God that induces life and joy.

Many individuals are more content to outline the dangers of what they don’t want about the Holy Spirit than to learn to walk and listen to the Spirit of God. Instead of learning how to exercise gifts of the Spirit and developing a solid theological foundation for good Spirit experience, they warn and lift eyebrows and call any discussion and experience “over-emphasis” or dangerous.

I know, because I was one of them.

These same church environments can spend countless hours discussing the women’s head covering and how it should be applied, wether or not men should wear shorts, if jewellery should be prohibited, and which bible translation is best while simultaneously calling any questions or experiences with the manifest gifts of the Spirit “over-emphasis.” I write and talk a lot about the Holy Spirit but it is because I almost entirely ignored the third person of the Trinity for many years and it had a drastic negative effect on my faith. I love the Holy Spirit and am unashamed of the beautiful gifts He gives.

What if everything good I said about God the Father was met with a cautionary statement? What if every good experience with Jesus in the church was met with a careful disclaimer? How do we think we can overcome supernatural evil without the promised Holy Spirit sent to help us do just that?

The oppressive weight of sadness when evil experiences are shared and observed in the church can only be lifted by the belief in goodness that leads to faithful overcoming Spirit-led action. When we walk with the Spirit in faith we will see supernatural goodness overcome and restore, heal, and change not only the world out there but the world inside us—our own shattered hearts groping for something transcendent, something bigger than the pain, something that overcomes. His name is Jesus, and he’s sent the Spirit to give you everything you need today to have life and give life in abundance. 

Everything mundane then holds a little shard of glory. A cup of soup becomes a piece of overcoming hatred. Our simple prayers of faith are often answered in radical healing. A clean kitchen becomes a space of overcoming peace. A little walk at twilight in His presence brings overcoming joy. A word of knowledge given from God evokes a surprising faith in a weary soul. A vase of brilliant pink tulips reminds us of heaven and overcoming hope. And those lilting beautiful words, spun in the Spirit and spoken in love land softly into the hearts of the hearers and overcome words of death with life.

When we walk with Him, our words drip healing life into the rawest pain of others wounds.

And people heal.

When we hear Him, we find courage to face the darkest trials without despair.

Because we’re never alone.

When we are full of His presence we stream life like a waterfall on the desert souls around us, and the good supernatural effects of the Spirit within us overcome the evil invasive effects of the devil around us. It looks like life abundant. It often manifests in holistic healing. It is the lungs of our spiritual experience.

There is absolutely no substitute to a robust and healthy pneumatology for the life of the church today. He is the closest presence of God in the world. He gives us the power we need to walk into destruction and see foundations raised. He gives us words of prophecy for the dry bones of our circumstances until we see life come from nothing. We need everything Jesus promised through the Holy Spirit when He left us.

We cannot stop at awareness of the devil and what He does, we must be overcome and mesmerised by something far more transcendent, sparkling like a million diamonds in the darkest night of the soul, gently touching the deepest agonies and whispering, “Take heart! I have overcome the world.” (John 16:33) When we truly believe that He has overcome, despair can finally slink and disappear behind the clear and thrilling notes of hope sung high above the destruction of our countries and nations as we see goodness overcome through His kingdom on earth.

Photo by Alisa Anton on Unsplash