Thread by @sometimesalight

Here's the thing:

Cultures and communities that can't recognize a self-serving person will struggle to recognize a sacrificial one.

Insofar as a space gives opportunity after opportunity to those who lack virtue, it cannot give those same opportunities to people who are pursuing virtue.

Bad work will come at the cost of good. When the wrong people are given the spotlight, people doing good, faithful work will be overlooked, undervalued, & unheard.

Why? Because the metrics for evaluating goodness & recognizing evil are skewed. This is why predatory, self-serving people can continue in certain spaces. Unfortunately, this also means that goodness will not be seen for what it is or rewarded.

The net result is that good people living lives of faithfulness will have to fight against the current and can often become discouraged as they see "the wicked prosper."

Obviously, in a sin-cursed earth, virtue and goodness will always be swimming upstream. But those of us who claim the name of Christ, dare not allow or enable such cultures.

One small way to fight back is to recognize & honor those who are living lives of faithful, sacrificial goodness. We must cultivate our imaginations so we can rightly see what is standing in front of us.

We must look--not to platform or position or personality--but to acts of love, good work, obedience, & boots-on-the-ground faithfulness. We must learn to recognize lived virtue. Not just the claim to virtue.