Tonight I was grateful for our family getting together for scripture study. We've been reading in Jeremiah, and a verse we read caught my eye, warning us not have an "evil heart". So I asked the kids what they thought an "evil heart" meant. They gave me good answers about having evil intentions, wanting to cause harm, and being a bad person. Those were my first thoughts, as well; but a second thought made me extend my definition a bit, and I was reminded of this scripture: "woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil".
So I asked another question - can you think of anything that is not good or evil? We then had a lengthy discussion about how anything that is not good is in fact evil. You may not be the ring leader of a terrible act; but if you're standing there allowing bad to happen, that's not good ... therefore, it is also evil. I've come to the conclusion that the size of a transgression does not determine if it's evil or not; all you need to know is whether it's of God - which is anything that persuades us to do good to others. The obvious opposite of that is anything that persuades us to do bad things; the "not so obvious" is anything that persuades us not to do good.
Here's an extreme example for you ... what about spending hours of wasting time on the Internet? You're not hurting anyone, but yourself; but it certainly don't mean any harm. But is it evil? Again, we have to ask ourselves if it's good to waste time, or if it's something that persuades you to do good. I think the answer is no, because it prevents us for doing good. I believe idleness is a major obstacle that the adversary uses for evil. If we're not careful, we may even justify it as being a "good thing" - when it really isn't. TV and the Internet would want you to think so; in fact, they convince us that we can't live without it. During our scripture study, my wife called it "glossed evil" - evil that gets glossed over (or overlooked) as insignificant.
A common phrase is that "idle hands are the devil's tools." It is time for us to re-evaluate the activities we take part of and how they shape our heart; particularly those that keep us idle. I encourage us all to fill our lives with goodness wherever and however we can, so that our hearts do not become evil.