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I want
| The “I want”
declaration is a familiar statement from children. However, it is
emblematic of our trouble as a race and as individuals. There are two
basic paths one can take in life, the pursuit of self or the seeking to
help others. Often it is marriage and parenthood that force us to
explore the realm of seeking the good of others ahead of our own
interests.
Most adults do not express their “I want” desires as openly as they did
when they were children. However, these desires loom large in the
thinking of most people from the trivial to the significant. Some can
shout at those that annoy them hoping to control others by being more
annoying. Others can plan meticulously to gain some advantage of others
over a period of time time. Regardless of the magnitude, consumptive
desires can blind one to such a degree they even become victims of the
desires of others.
In the movie “The Flim Flam Man” the statement “You can’t cheat an
honest man” was cited as key to making a con work. You first needed to
find a greedy element to be exploited that could be used to draw in the
victim to be conned. The bible describes an alternative desire;
Mat_5:6 Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.
Seeking truth, wisdom, and understanding are desires that bring one
closer to God. Trying to feed one’s fleshly desires is a hunger that is
never satisfied. Often Christians do not recognize that they are still
driven by their own fleshly desires. One can want to feel special and
see in every aspect of their life the controlling hand of God. One can
be self-righteous and feel superior about the works they have done. One
can even want to feel that they have completed every religious criteria
so that they can focus on seeking to satisfy fleshly or worldly desires.
Self-seeking is at the core of our fallen nature. Humans were created
with a spiritual connection to God. Disobedience broke this connection
in the Garden of Eden. This connection is restored when someone trusts
in the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus to pay for our sins.
However, in order for us to have trust, we have to hear about Jesus and
see it as true so that we can trust in it. Sadly most of humanity is
blind to truth. This is because making ourselves feel good seems a more
rewarding path than truth. The result of this is blindness for
most The bible describes some as “brute beasts” and “lewd fellows
of the baser sort”. Blindness to truth and the resulting emphasis on
seeking whatever one can get for himself might be seen as animalistic.
Few people can summon the self-reflection to ask themselves if they are
driven primarily by their desires. Being able to break out of
self-seeking can require some brutal encounter with reality, a
recognition that self-seeking never really satisfies, or a greater
desire to know truth.
This is perhaps the single greatest reason people are not interested in
Christianity because they see no way that it would benefit them. Even
the idea of truth can seem so abstract as to be useless to most.
When the automobile became available many people moved away from their
families. Often this was because people felt that their parents and
siblings were stifling and that the freedom to do what “I want” was
liberating. When feminism was presented as an option, many women
reduced their family involvement to find employment opportunities that
satisfied their “I want” desires.
Life became impoverished as our connections with family and friends
diminished. Life on social media would seem to answer the “I want”
problem. However, this Potemkin life is not as satisfying as real life
connections were, even if they were also occasionally frustrating. The
natural human condition is selfishness. Technological tools allow us to
distance ourselves from others, yet this seems to only make things
worse.
A pleasant life is not one where we find the right environment,
friendships, or career. The ability to find happiness in a world of
selfishness requires us to transcend our own selfishness and seek to
help those also seeking after what is real. This is what the Christian
life is designed to do. The modern world has been shaped by Satan to
make humans vulnerable to deception. Crippling families and amplifying
our natural selfishness has produced generations of people whose
relationships have shrunken to the point of waiting for their cell
phones to tell them what to do. |
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