The Parable of Malware

Western Civilization is malware.

It is so complex and pervasive that most people mistake it for the operating system for human life on this planet. However, it is a huge mask over the real OS and it hands control of human existence over to a bunch of crooks.

You get the idea.

Over the past few days, but with a certain urgency this morning, my heart was replaying into my mind the collected experiences in my life pointing out where I said or did something that was contrary to our human wiring, and contrary to God’s revelation of what’s real. Most of the time my intentions were honorable, but the context was a massive sludge pit of lies. Thus, I got burned and some of those scars are still just a bit sensitive. That kind of thing is what keeps us honest once we learn better.

Some of the events weren’t real, but a part of the narrative of semi-reality we all have in our heads. Against this plays out a bunch of advice I could have given myself or others had I only known better. Often you really can’t tell people anything, including the folks in the mirror. We need a certain amount of scar tissue to function in a fallen world. Without it, we are psychopaths who are incapable of moral learning.

We cannot explain the existence of psychopaths in our world, but we can understand that a strong moral context restricts them from becoming predators. Plenty of folks have discovered they had been wired as psychopaths all along but didn’t realize it because the influences in their life didn’t encourage them to exploit it against others. So we walk through a world knowing it could be far, far better, and knowing also that such is wholly unlikely. Instead, we live with an awareness that is always jangling in alarm at what we know should be. Meanwhile, we have almost no leverage to address the problem. It’s the most challenging way to live, and is our divine calling.

So in the current cultural miasma we learn to approach social situations with reticence. Unless we are brought in with the expectation of asserting a certain dominion, we wait to see where God’s glory can be found. This assumes you already have some idea of who God made you to be. You’ve looked in the mirror and are no longer shocked by what you see, but know yourself for what you are. That way you can avoid situations where your fallen nature will exploit you. Nobody else needs to know for the most part, so we neither advertise nor hide, but simply do what we are designed by God to do for His glory. We allow Him to convict or correct and focus on making Him look good. We do not decide who will receive His message.

It is our proper and purposeful function that is our most powerful statement about what is righteous. If the observer sees nothing they would want, then we leave it to God. If our encounter touches someone else with God’s glory, it will be for them to decide when and how they will pursue it. We can decide only to be morally present for His glory. Give them time, because the chasm between where they are and where they could and ought to be is nothing less than monumental. Just think of how far you have come already.

The user who owns and operates the computer gets to decide what you’ll correct as a service technician.