As he laid his head down to rest the dark room around him began to slowly cave in all around him. That uneasy feeling of the presence of evil in the room took over his mind as he tossed and turned desperately trying to fall fast asleep. This wasn’t the first night he felt like this; in fact it has been a nightly trend for the past several months. He would wake up in the morning with sacks under his eyes from yet another sleepless night. Yet in his mind the worst part about the 24 hour span of time from sunrise to sunrise was not the 8 hours spent battling away the chronic sleep disorder, it was the other 16 that he dreaded the most…Until one night he tried to make it all go away…. (to be continued later in this segment)
I have always wondered why it is so incredibly hard for Christians to open up to other Christians about the things going on in our lives. Besides the obvious stereotypes of us being hypocritical and too judgmental of others, I wonder if there is an underlying fear much deeper, that we never seem to realize until it is us in that certain situation.
A number of years back I knew a guy who encountered some very hard life circumstances. As a result he attempted to take his own life. Long story short, he failed and was then checked into the psych ward at the hospital, pending psychological treatment. The part of this story that broke my heart (besides his life circumstances, I could only hope that is implied), was that every time I asked how he was doing, all I heard were updates on the progress made while in the psych ward. Don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against modern medicine or the treatment process that can in fact help in the process of treatment. The part that struck me the most was that we decided to disassociate [him] from the struggle he was currently in, and as a result we chose to focus on the struggle rather than the individual.
Here’s where I’m going with this: Sin is Satan’s most effective way to get us to lie to ourselves about who we really are. Sin doesn’t come on a postcard in the mail: [insert sin of choice], check yes or no to engage, please return to address listed below, no postage necessary. We do have a choice in whether or not we want to sin, however I don’t think the choice is that easy to overcome. Like I said, Satan’s most effective success rate has been from coaxing an individual to lie to themselves about who they really are, and that is a loved child of God.
Chances are murderers didn’t become murderers till they were conned into believing that taking someone else’s life would fulfill their own. Thieves weren’t inclined to steal until they were told to believe that having just a little bit more would satisfy that empty hole in their life. Pick a sin, any sin, I’d be willing to bet deep down that every sin is just another blinder pulled over our heads to force us to believe something false about ourselves.
We see people and hear stories of people who are “going through tough times,” yet how many times can we honestly say we think about them rather than their struggle (myself absolutely included in this). We disconnect who they are as a person from the things in life they are going through. We would much rather categorize them as the drug addict, cheater, lier, murderer, or thief, rather than see them as a real human being dealing with real life circumstances.
I called this entry: the [dis]similarities between sin and struggle because I believe we often disconnect the two, even without realizing it. The person soon becomes part of their sin in our minds, and we label them based on what they did or what they are struggling with rather than seeing them as a beloved child of God. Chances are: WE AREN’T ANY DIFFERENT! We may just be better at lying about it to ourselves. We are all human aren’t we? We all struggle with something. God doesn’t see us as the sinners we are, so what makes us think we should see others and ourselves in the same way. We often times forget to see the sin as a struggle. A struggle connotes an effort being made to defeat that sin. We’d rather just write it off as sin so we don’t need to bother checking up on their progress. We’d rather just say “I pray for him/her every single day for their soul,” rather than be the shoulder to hold them up when there’s no one else around.
This probably sounds like some theological paper, or information “we already know.” But I beg to ask why nothing (or so it seems) is being done to fight this? Why do so many people wake up the next morning praying for the hours to pass them by quickly. Why are we so keen on a system of prayer cards and emails when so much more can be done? I wonder if we honestly began to see each and every individual for who they are rather than what they are going through, if we would begin act differently. If someone close to me was going through a tough time that I would be there for them (aside from just praying for them), so what makes the rest of the population any different? Why would we rather put their name down on a prayer card and pass it along to the next person in line? Trust me…I AM THE SAME WAY. This wasn’t written for YOU, it was written for US, the people who are called to be like Jesus.
A good friend once told me: “Love until it hurts, and when it hurts, Love some more.”
The story I told at the beginning hasn’t actually happened. But would you realize it if it were? Have you ever considered that there may be a handful of people all around you every single day who feels the same way, but don’t want to open up because they fear that they will become marginalized and categorized into a psychopathic sin profile. How many people make it through a single day simply because of a smile from a stranger?
“The greatest trick of the devil isn’t to get us into some kind of evil, but rather to have us WASTING OUR TIME. Which is why he tries so hard to get Christians to be religious.” (Donald Miller)
Whose life will you save today?…
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