for my friend jana and here’s a link to my notes.
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I was TIRED last night and went to bed at 9:30. I journaled for a little bit, and here’s what I was thinking about:
What stands at the rood of all the is evil within a person? Underneath all of the horrible actions and attitudes, the beliefs and behaviors, what are the hidden reservoirs which spring up and give life to the destructiveness that we cause.
I’m sure there’s several ways to describe the darkness within, but here is what I have seen in scriptures and in life: pride, hate, and hopelessness.
pride says, "I need nothing or nearly nothing."
hate says, "Nothing, or nearly nothing, has any value."
hopelessness says, "Nothing, or nearly nothing really matters."
Adam ate the fruit because he no longer needed God, he didn’t need God to tell him what was good and what was evil, he wanted that knowledge for himself. Adam blamed Eve because their relationship wasn’t valuable enough to preserve. Adam hid from God because of shame, he feared the consequences to come.
pride rejects God’s Word, saying, "I know what’s right."
hate rejects God’s love, saying, "I know what’s satisfying."
hopelessness rejects God’s promises, saying, "I know what ought to come next."
I think our flaws and immaturities come from one of these things. Pride is isolation from God in our thoughts, we become self-reliant and selfish. Hate is isolation form God in our spirit, we don’t look to him to meet our needs, we set our desires on lesser things. Hopelessness is isolation from God in our focus, we become absorbed on the goals we set rather than the course he’s laid out for us.
We live a self-created, self-centered, self-deceived mockery of real life.
Put this to the test against the flaws in your life. Are you arrogant? Are you co-dependent? Do you have fits of rage? Do you slander and gossip? Do you pursue impurities?
We need to drop the pride, and admit our need for God and others. We need to drop the hate and value God and others. We need to set our hope on things above, not the empty things of our world.
What do you think? Agree or disagree? Have I simplified things too much? Is there a better way to say these things? I’d love your feedback.
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this morning I was trying to give max and marc a definition for what it means to love. So here’s what I came up with: when you love someone, you want them to have the very best things. then I gave some examples of loving God, others, and self.
A few minutes later, Max says attentively, "I love myself and want to die."
Now, this may be shocking for you. Not so much for me. My mom died when I was littl6e. Misha’s dad died a few years ago. We talk about these things some with our kids.
So I said to Max, "Why do you say that?"
"When I die I’ll go to Heaven and be with God, and that’s the very best thing."
We continued to have a great conversation, since he’s six years old, it lasted for about two more minutes.
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