I was listening to a radio show yesterday (after the massive beatdown Mike Vick put on the helpless Washington Redskins on Monday Night Football). The question was posed, after how well he's been playing, "would you want him on your team?" Now barring (and understandably so) the Atlanta Falcons, I think every other teams should want to have the best player (right now) in the league on their team, because winning is winning. However, the host responded, "I would not want anyone on my team who is capable of doing what he did."This got me thinking, "what makes us any different than Michael Vick?" Why is it that when people like Vick make these huge mistakes that we start making these strong assertions that we could never have done something like that. The problem is that many of us are fooling ourselves (especially those in the Christian community). Each of us is much closer to Michael Vick or even Adolf Hilter than we'd like to admit. We're all human and given different circumstances, things may have turned out a lot different for us.
It doesn't take a lot to look around this world and notice that there is something wrong. There are a lot of bad people: crooked politicians, shady business men and women, bullies, spouse abusers, drug dealers, pedophiles, rapists, murderers. What separates us from them? The answer is circumstances and God's grace.
It's funny how if a young African American young man or women ends up in jail for dealing drugs or killing someone, many are quick to defend him or her saying that they were a product of their environment. However, Mike Vick makes it out of the ghetto of Newport New, VA on a seemingly super-human athletic ability and we automatically expect more of him despite the fact that no one cared to show him the way. All we cared about was that he was electrifying on the field and how much money was being made off of him. Vick grew up in a community that was steeped in dog-fighting. Are we surprised that it carried over into his professional life as well?
Now some of us need to get down off our high horse and accept the fact that we are products of our environments as well. We had everything we could ever want. Our circumstances were different. By God's grace, we were spared the circumstances that might have lead us down the wrong road. But nevertheless, we are all human and suffer from one major flaw that each of us inherited from a common ancestor. Sin. Any of us is a sinner who have ever lied to our parents, copied homework, held a grudge, looked lustfully at a woman or even held hatred in our hearts for Michael Vick. In God's eyes sin is sin and we have all fallen short of His standard. Stop acting as though your "good" life has earned you the right to cast judgment on others because if anything it should make you more forgiving of others because, by God's grace, you have been spared.
The Bible tells us that "just as sin entered the world through one man, and death through sin, in this way death spread to all men, because all sinned. (Romans 5:12 HCSB). Sin is a part of the human condition and we are all capable of the most terrible atrocities even if we never end up commiting them. Likewise the Bible teaches us that we are not to condemn people for their sins lest we be condemned ourselves (Matthew 7:1-5). Mike Vick publicly claims to have received Jesus as his savior. Therefore, he has been forgiven; period. And if his sin had to lead him into deepest pits of Hell to get him to turn to God; then maybe it was worth it.
Mike Vick has been given a second chance and he's done far more with it than most of us ever could have. Stop your skepticism about whether he is truly repentant! Stop acting like the petulant older brother in the story of the "Prodigal Son," standing outside the party refusing to come in. Rather, like the Father, "celebrate and rejoice, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.'" (Luke 15:32 HCSB)
So how are Mike Vick and I a lot alike? We've both been forgiven.
