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Christianity was supposed to be about becoming like Jesus. | |
We went in the wrong direction. |
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Christian Pioneer - eBook for Cell Phone Everything you Know is Wrong |
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| What in Us is “Wrong”? Applying truth to ourselves The is perhaps the most difficult assessment we can make. Our natural desire to feel comfortable often resists any consideration of personal defect or quickly justifies it. A guy was once asked why he stole a cart from a grocery store. His answer was that, “They have ripped me off plenty of times”. This obvious fabrication might be seen as wound ointment to sooth the trauma of even considering he had done anything wrong.  Even people who sincerely believe they are seeking truth often halt at the point of applying it to themselves. Reflecting on the last time we hurt someone else is a good starting point to reflect on our motives. It is common to strike out in response to feeling hurt. This in turn usually makes someone else feel hurt and want to strike back. It is easy to seek how arguments escalate. We might reflect on a story we often tell about ourselves to others. We can attempt to recall the story but in stringently accurate terms. When we spot embellishments, we can ask ourselves why these were added. One can use the precision of memory as a “scalpel” to identify distortions and begin to see why we make them. Do we want to make ourselves more heroic? Are we afraid that our real selves will not be acceptable? Are we trying to manipulate someone to gain a favorable opinion? Were we trying to impress ourselves?  In such a self assessment one might discover that they routinely present themselves in a more favorable light than the facts justify. They might discover that it is not so much pride that drives this, but an attempt to sooth anxieties. This sort of identification is helpful because one can address the correct area. In a way, this sort of process can be thought of as reprogramming yourself. By taking a sort of “manual control” over your life, you have the opportunity to break into reflexive processes. For example, if someone says something hurtful to you, instead of firing a stinging rejoinder, one can ask, “That really hurt, why do you say that? The bible says that the heart is deceitful above all things. This one saying captures much of the polarity between feelings and truth. Being able to “turn down the dial” of feelings can provide a window to truth less clouded by what we want. There is a saying, “Evil cannot be conquered in the world, it can only be resisted in yourself”. This may be true for those who are not Christian. However, Christians have the opportunity to make major changes within themselves by first having the compulsive nature of the flesh made ineffective and secondly by choosing to pursue truth. Those who pursue truth will eventually have to consider Christianity (real Christianity) and the bible. |
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Information about Christianity and the Christian life. |
Pictures and views of our farm | Some of our animals | See some of the old-fashioned crafts we are trying to relearn | ||