Self-pity… cuddle and nurse it as an infant and you’ll have on your hands in a brief period of time a beast, a monster, a raging, coarse brute that will spread the poison of bitterness and paranoia throughout your system.
~Charles R. Swindoll (1934- )
It is for discipline that you have to endure. God is treating you as sons. For what son is there whom his father does not discipline? If you are left without discipline, in which all have participated, then you are illegitimate children and not sons. Besides this, we have had earthly fathers who disciplined us and we respected them. Shall we not much more be subject to the Father of spirits and live? For they disciplined us for a short time as it seemed best to them, but He disciplines us for our good, that we may share His holiness. For the moment all discipline seems painful rather than pleasant, but later it yields the peaceful fruit of righteousness to those who have been trained by it. Therefore lift your drooping hands and strengthen your weak knees, and make straight paths for your feet, so that what is lame may not be put out of joint but rather be healed. Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord. See to it that no one fails to obtain the grace of God; that no “root of bitterness” springs up and causes trouble, and by it many become defiled; that no one is sexually immoral or unholy like Esau, who sold his birthright for a single meal. For you know that afterward, when he desired to inherit the blessing, he was rejected, for he found no chance to repent, though he sought it with tears.
~ straight truth from Hebrews 12
Oh beloved, it is true. We are people who are exceedingly willing to set up other people or circumstances to make us happy. And even in knowing it to be a really bad idea. We do it anyway. There is within us this need for justice and desire to place the blame on someone or something when we are not happy.
And when we hurt, we are even more willing, it seems, to place some sort of ‘mask of evil’ on the person who is doing us ‘wrong.’ For, how in the world could anyone dare to:
Think differently than me?
See the world differently than me?
Hold different values than me?
Do anything purposefully to bring me discomfort?
Come to a different conclusion than my own clear thinking yields?
And may this fool of a writer be so bold as to challenge you, dear reader, to not say this is a problem that other people have. We all do it. It is as if we have this ability to instantly implant a wedge between us and other people the moment they do not (instantly) do what we want them to do (or think).
Now, please do not think this lapis-blue-eyed mystic is stepping into politics or religion or social issues. Many of those things are areas for vigorous debate – even debate that may end in the ending of friendship; and even (G_d forbid) the commencement of just war. No, what i am talking about is the simple day-to-day getting along with each other of brothers and sisters and husbands and wives and friends and co-workers.
What is it with us that we are so ready to poison the water of relationships? Why would we not rather live in peace with each other? There is still within us, something horrible. Us. We are (the old flesh prone to the law of sin and death), to put it bluntly, wretched beings. We would, to put it even more bluntly, rather see someone else die than take away our comforts. We do, to put it even more exceedingly bluntly, care so much about ourselves, and our comforts and our rights and our desires – that nothing else matters.
And this is very good news.
What?
Yeah.
The Word tells us very clearly that that old voice driving us to self-pity and bitterness is dead. One has only to browse through the New Testament to see the truth… Here are a few….
Are you feeling the screaming of ‘self’ tonight beloved? Don’t listen. Unless, like Graham Cooke says, “you have a habit of hanging out in graveyards listening to dead people.” Don’t even blame the dead voice. Just walk towards The Light!
Almost home beloved.
