“God made mankind upright, but they have gone in search of many schemes.” — Ecclesiastes 7:29 (NIV)
As I reflected on that verse today, I thought about something.
We spend so much time talking about how evil people are that we rarely stop to ask a far more uncomfortable question:
If God made us good, what happened?
Newborns don’t enter this world hating others.
They aren’t plotting revenge, dreaming of becoming abusive, addicted, violent, or cruel.
In fact, we all enter this world dependent on someone else.
Someone must feed, protect, teach, and love us in order for us to grow. So what happens when some of the first lessons a child learns aren’t about love, but survival?
The numbers are staggering.
Globally, up to one billion children between the ages of 2 and 17 experience physical, emotional, or sexual violence every single year.
The World Health Organization also estimates that 6 out of every 10 children under the age of five regularly experience physical punishment or psychological aggression from their own parents or caregivers.
That’s disheartening.
Before millions of children ever learn maths or who they are, they’ve already learnt fear. They’ve learned unpredictability.
Many children learn at a young age that the people who are supposed to protect them usually cause the most harm. The world begins teaching them long before they’re old enough to question the lesson.
Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACEs) are more common than most people realise.
According to the CDC, three out of every four U.S. high school students report experiencing at least one adverse childhood experience, and one in five report experiencing four or more.
Most children experience everything from abuse, neglect, violence, and substance abuse in the home to mental illness, etc.
These aren’t just painful memories. They shape how children see themselves and how they navigate the world. It shapes how they respond to stress, how they interpret love, and how they survive.
The CDC estimates that preventing these experiences could reduce depression in adults by 78% and suicide attempts among high school students by as much as 89%.
Read that again.
Not because trauma guarantees someone’s future, but because what happens to us early in life often echoes for a lifetime.
A conversation with an ex challenged something I believed.
He told me about a relative who was sent to live with his father and his new wife. The young man was sexually abused by his step-brothers from the age of five years old well into his teens.
“How much choice did he have?”
He then shared another story about two young boys who desperately wanted acceptance. They were so eager to prove their loyalty to the older guys that they were willing to commit crimes for street cred.
One of his friends worked for a woman who refused to pay him for landscaping services. He gathered the two guys and my ex to handle the issue.
My friend told me how he was in the car praying that nothing would happen. When they arrived at the house, thankfully, no one was home.
My ex was relieved, but the young men were disappointed. They were waiting for the moment to prove themselves. They were strapped up and ready to go.
The two young men became ruthless drug dealers. When an unsatisfied customer allegedly reported them, the woman was found tortured and dismembered.
They are now serving life in prison.
His question wasn’t whether what they did was wrong. It was evil and sadistic at best. His argument is how a person’s environment can cultivate and harden them until the most heinous acts become justifiable in their mind.
We all have choices.
Like many others, I have lived through very painful experiences. I could have become bitter, hateful, and cruel and passed my pain on to someone else.
While I’m not perfect, I chose to evolve. I transmuted my pain into power.
My experiences became the catalyst for positive change. I decided to be the voice for those who may not have the words or the strength to come forward.
I learned that we all have a responsibility to leave our mark on the world. We either become part of the problem or part of the solution.
While it’s true that we don’t choose our childhood, life eventually places something in our hands that no one else can carry for us… the responsibility for who we become next.
Our past explains us, but it should never completely define us.
God created humanity with dignity. The world complicated it, pain distorted it, sin corrupted it, trauma reshaped it, and fear hardened it.
Yet, somehow goodness still survives.
Maybe that’s what Ecclesiastes 7:29 is trying to say.
The world becomes a better place every time a parent refuses to repeat the abuse they endured. Every time an addict chooses recovery and stays clean. Every time a victim refuses to become the next victimiser. Every time someone quietly chooses to do what’s right even when no one is watching.
Perhaps the greatest miracle isn’t that evil exists.
Perhaps the greatest miracle is that after everything life can do to someone…
Goodness can still choose to rise.