Cry of loneliness is felt by all...

This is a cry that is felt by all, though better suppressed by some. Our experience of loneliness is universal, and love alone is not the answer.  There is a “beyond” in all of us that love does not satisfy – as wonderful a privilege as love is.


 Author Denis de Rougemonts said, "Love ceases to be a demon only when it ceases to be a god."


In other words, love becomes a scourge when it is idolized as en end in itself.
Yet we still pursue it like a hunter and assume that “that thing called love” is our final trophy. Exalting it in our songs and talking of it in platitudes that it can never equal. As grand an experience as love is , it is not the final answer to loneliness.


We have seen four great gains over the past generation that we have welcomed with a promise and yet disappointment has accompanied each one.

1. Never before have we had such means to instantly transmit content or create desire.
• The incredible has actually happened when men have taken to letter writing because it is called e-mail

2. Age of technology has delivered a bill of goods for which the cost is exacted more in the loss of our peace of mind than in our bank accounts.
• Were intended to free up time for leisure, but less time is spent in building relationships while more                 time is invested in using those conveniences.



3. Medicine has brought us vastly improved means to preserve life, and yet we have lost the definition of life     itself.
• We talk about the right to die when we are mature and hurting without having been given the right to              live when we are fragile and needy.

4. Human sexuality has never been more studied, offered up, and pandered to in public.
• yet, we have never been more confused about what is right or, for that matter, even normal in such                 expressions.

Increased communication capacity, technological advances, progress in medicine and sexual liberation have, all in their own way, only made us a more captive and trivial culture. And still the cry of loneliness is heard from millions of hearts, and love alone is not the answer.

Why then do we suffer the condition of loneliness, and what is the answer?


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i5VycDIAzoo

The most deeply felt ache within the human heart

Novelist and writer Thomas Wolfe – God’s Lonely Man
"The whole conviction of my life now rests upon the belief that loneliness, far from being a rare and curious phenomenon, peculiar to myself and to a few other solitary people, is the central and inevitable feature of human existence. All this hideous doubt, despair and dark confusion of the soul a lonely man must know, for he is united to no image save that which he creates himself. He is bolstered by no other knowledge save that which he can gather for himself with the vision of his own eyes and brain. He is sustained and cheered and aided by no party. He is given comfort by no creed. He has no faith in him except his own, and often that faith deserts him, leaving him shaken and filled with impotence. Then it seems to him that his life has come to nothing. That he is ruined, lost, and broken, past redemption, and that morning, that bright and shining morning with its promise of new beginnings, will never come upon the earth again as it did once."

Writer D.H. Lawrence – Women in Love
"We want to delude ourselves that love is the root. It isn’t.
It is only the branches. The root is beyond love, a naked kind of isolation, an isolated me, that does NOT meet and mingle, and never can.’
‘And you mean you can’t love?’ she asked, in trepidation.
‘Yes, if you like. I have loved. But there is a beyond, where there is not love.’
She could not submit to this. She felt it swooning over her.
But she could not submit.
‘It is true, what I say; there is a beyond, in you, in me, which is further than love, beyond the scope, as stars are beyond the scope of vision'"

Have these two touched the throbbing nerve of reality, are they telling it as it really is or is this just literary license in the use of melodramatic and eccentric artists?

Last thoughts on pleasure...

Remember, that in our service to God, we bring God His greatest pleasure.

The goal to hear Him say, “well done, good and faithful servant” must govern the pleasure of our lives.


Psalm 147:11 – the LORD delights in those who fear him, who put their hope in his unfailing love

Application #3 for what we have learned about pleasure...

God is the source of all good pleasure – the closer one gets to legitimate pleasure, the closer one gets to the heart of God

C.S. Lewis – The Screwtape Letters

The senior devil has instructed the junior devil on how to trip up an individual who seems to be straddling the line between God and self.

“Keep him from going over to the Enemy” was the charge given to the young imp.

Some days later the junior devil returned to the senior devil and reported that he had lost the man over completely to the “Enemy’s” side. Meaning that the individual had made a decision to become a follower of Jesus

“How did that happen?” roared the senior devil, “Could you not have seduced him?”

“No” came the reply “because he did two things that took him away from us.

First, every day he took a walk, not for the exercise but for the pure pleasure of it. Second, he decided to read a good book, not so that he might quote it to someone else but rather, for the pure pleasure of it. Between the walk and the good book, he came within the Enemy’s reach”

Application #2 for what we have learned about pleasure...

Application #2: Pleasure is a means, not an end. Joy should be the greater end 

      –Joy is the fulfillment that comes from a relationship that breathes  contentment in being and is not dependant on just doing
      – Joy will dim or be broken if they are not nourished by and do not point to the greatest relationship of all – with God

That is why, when pleasure has gone, it either leaves behind honour or dishonour, joy or sorrow.

If we were to look carefully at which pleasures bring joy and which pleasures diminish it,

We would discover that every genuine and enduring pleasure is tied somehow into a relationship that also has a moral commitment

"The Lost Chord" is a song composed by Arthur Sullivan in 1877 --

Seated one day at the organ,
I was weary and ill at ease,
And my fingers wandered idly
Over the noisy keys.

I know not what I was playing,
Or what I was dreaming then;
But I struck one chord of music,
Like the sound of a great Amen.

It flooded the crimson twilight,
Like the close of an angel's psalm,
And it lay on my fevered spirit
With a touch of infinite calm.

It quieted pain and sorrow,
Like love overcoming strife;
It seemed the harmonious echo
From our discordant life.

It linked all perplexèd meanings
Into one perfect peace,
And trembled away into silence
As if it were loth to cease.

I have sought, but I seek it vainly,
That one lost chord divine,
Which came from the soul of the organ,
And entered into mine.

It may be that death's bright angel
Will speak in that chord again,
It may be that only in Heav'n
I shall hear that grand Amen.
G. K. Chesterton’s Orthodoxy - Joy in knowing Christ
He points out that for the Christian, joy is central and sorrow is peripheral. This is because life’s fundamental questions are answered and only the peripheral ones are not. But for the one who does not know Christ,
sorrow is central and joy peripheral because peripheral questions may be answered but the fundamental ones are not.

Application #1 for what we have learned about pleasure...

Application #1: All pleasure must be bought at a price
 – for true pleasure the price is paid before it is enjoyed. For false pleasure the price is paid after it is enjoyed.

Turning aside from immediate gratification is one of the most difficult things to do. This is where the battle is often won or lost.

Laura Schlesinger: “It’s not an addiction problem you have, it’s a character problem.” This was Dr. Laura's response to a male caller who claimed he had an addiction to a certain lifestyle – Laura bluntly restated his problem --

Thoughts on judging others as to what pleasure is...

We all come from different backgrounds, privileges and responsibilities.

For one a beautiful symphony may be a balm for the heart’s wounds.
For another an energetic sporting event may provide respite.
For a third, a conversation on a great theme may put iron into the blood.

Whatever it may be, so long as it meets the test of God’s purpose for your life, is not enjoyed at the expense of another, and provides the opportunity to lead a life that is balanced, we shall find that God Himself will meet us and is sufficient pleasure for all our heart’s longings.

Balance the amount of pleasure

Continuing on the conversation started by F.W. Boreham, and having reviewed legitimate pleasure in the last blog, let's note his third point which is understanding that even legitimate pleasure needs to be balanced.


Definition: Any pleasure, however good, if not kept in balance, will distort reality or destroy appetite

We have heard it said that variety is the spice of life.
It is not so much the spice of life as much as it is life itself.

Only they who know how to reach out to that variety can truly enjoy the riches of a God of abundance.

 Maybe, for most of us, we can't even get to this stage because we have learned to balance between work and pleasure.  Take a look at this article for some help --
http://www.ehow.com/how_2054721_balance-work-pleasure.html

Illicit Pleasure

Continuing on the conversation started by F.W. Boreham, and having reviewed legitimate pleasure in the last blog, let's note his second point which is illlicit pleasure.

Definition:  Any pleasure that jeopardizes the sacred right of another is an illicit pleasure

 As just one example, Drs. Minirth and Meier explain the high rate of depression among high performers and the web of self-centred choices that lie beneath the surface --

Out of all the various personality types in our culture, there is one type that is more likely than any other to get depressed at some time in life. That type is the "nice guy"--the person who is self-sacrificing, overly conscientious, over-dutiful, hard-working, and frequently quite religious. Psychiatrists call this type the obsessive-compulsive personality.

Most lay persons call him a perfectionist, or a "workaholic", or even a dedicated servant.... Many find this quite surprising.... But those who have made a study of the depth of unconscious human dynamics realize that is really quite fair. ...Those dedicated servants who get depressed have as many struggles with personal selfishness as the parasite on welfare, he is out in society serving humanity at a work pace of eighty to a hundred hours a week, he is selfishly ignoring his wife and children. ...In his own eyes, and in the eyes of society, he is the epitome of human dedication... while his wife suffers from loneliness...and his sons...eventually commit suicide. ...He becomes angry when his wife and children place demands on him.

He can't understand how they could have the nerve to call such an unselfish, dedicated servant a selfish husband and father. ...In reality, his wife and children are correct, and they are suffering severely because of this subtle selfishness. This is precisely the reason why so many of the children of pastors, missionaries, and doctors turn out to be rebellious.

Legitimate Pleasure

In my last blog, I noted a quote from F.W. Boreham.  In that quote, he gave us three principles to follow in determining or helping us determine the healthy from the unhealthy.

Today, the wisdom we seek involves legitimate pleasure.

Our definition will be:
Any pleasure that refreshes you without diminishing you, distracting you, or side-tracking you from the ultimate goal is a legitimate pleasure

First requirement would be to establish the purpose of life itself. Second requirement would be to establish a philosophy of life. Now we have points of reference for all choices – distinguishing between fulfillment and disappointment, fun and destructiveness.

Danish philosopher Soren Kierkegaard: He learned to define life backward and live it forward – the destiny he sought became the dictator of the direction to choose.  That is no different then to how I create a project management flowchart for my business.

Susanna Wesley, who had nineteen children which included John and Charles Wesley had this definition.

“Whatever weakens your reason, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, takes off your relish for spiritual things, whatever increases the authority of the body over the mind, that thing is sin to you, however innocent it may seem in itself." 

Our message is simple: The places to which we go, the friendships we embrace, the language we use, the shows we watch, the books we read, the thoughts we entertain – all must be aligned with the purpose to which we are called by God.

 

Framing the Problem

In our cry for freedom in pleasure, we can't go much further unless we set up some boundaries of our discussions.

F.W. Boreham, writing a half-century ago, accurately portrays the torment of being caught between the legalistic and the lawless indulgences.

"Laughter, merriment and fun, were quite evidently intended to occupy a large place in this world. Yet on no subject under the sun has the Church displayed more embarrassment and confusion.

One might almost suppose that here we have discovered an important phase of human experience on which Christianity is criminally reticent; a terra incognita which no intrepid prophet had explored; a silent sea upon whose waters no ecclesiastical adventurer had ever burst; a dark and eerie country upon which no sun had ever shone.

Dr. Jowett tells us of the devout old Scotsman who, on Saturday night, locked up the piano and unlocked the organ, reversing the process last thing on the Sabbath evening. The piano is the sinner; the organ the saint! Dr. Parker used to wax merry at the man who regarded bagatelle as a gift from heaven, whilst billiards he deemed to be a stepping-stone to perdition.

The play we condemn; it is anathema, to us. The same play-or a vastly inferior one-screened on a film we delightedly admire.

One Christian follows the round of gaiety with the maddest of the merry; another wears a hair shirt, and starves himself into a skeleton.

One treats life as all a frolic; another as all a funeral.

We swerve from the Scylla of aestheticism to the Charybdis of asceticism.

We swing like a pendulum from the indulgence of the Epicurean to the severities of the Stoic, failing to recognize, with the author of Ecce Homo, that it is the glory of Christianity that, rejecting the absurdities of each, it combines the cardinal excellencies of both.

We allow without knowing why we allow we ban without knowing why we prohibit. We

Compound for sins we are inclined to By damning those we have no mind to.

We are at sea without chart or compass. Our theories of pleasure are in hopeless confusion. Is there no definite doctrine of amusement? Is there no philosophy of fun? There must be! And there is!"

The Bible addresses pleasure possibly far more than it does the issue of pain, because the truth is that ultimately meaninglessness does not come from being weary of pain, but meaninglessness comes from being weary of pleasure.

Ecclesiastes 2: Pleasures Are Meaningless

1 I said to myself, “Come now, I will test you with pleasure to find out what is good.” But that also proved to be meaningless. 2 “Laughter,” I said, “is madness. And what does pleasure accomplish?” 3 I tried cheering myself with wine, and embracing folly—my mind still guiding me with wisdom. I wanted to see what was good for people to do under the heavens during the few days of their lives.

4 I undertook great projects: I built houses for myself and planted vineyards. 5 I made gardens and parks and planted all kinds of fruit trees in them. 6 I made reservoirs to water groves of flourishing trees. 7 I bought male and female slaves and had other slaves who were born in my house. I also owned more herds and flocks than anyone in Jerusalem before me. 8 I amassed silver and gold for myself, and the treasure of kings and provinces. I acquired male and female singers, and a harem[a] as well—the delights of a man’s heart. 9 I became greater by far than anyone in Jerusalem before me. In all this my wisdom stayed with me.

10 I denied myself nothing my eyes desired; I refused my heart no pleasure.
My heart took delight in all my labor, and this was the reward for all my toil.
11 Yet when I surveyed all that my hands had done and what I had toiled to achieve,
everything was meaningless, a chasing after the wind; nothing was gained under the sun.

I will leave you with one final frame from psychologists Frank Minirth and Paul Meier and a quote from their book Happiness is a Choice.

“Minirth and I are convinced that many people do choose happiness but still do not obtain it. The reason for this is that even though they choose to be happy, they seek for inner peace and joy in the wrong places. They seek for happiness in materialism and do not find it. They seek for joy in sexual prowess but end up with fleeting pleasures and bitter long-term disappointments. They seek inner fulfillment by obtaining positions of power in corporations, in government, or even in their own families, but they remain unfulfilled. I have had millionaire businessmen come to my office and tell me they have big houses, yachts, and condominiums in Colorado, nice children, secure corporate positions – and suicidal tendencies. They have everything this world has to offer except one thing – inner peace and joy. They come to my office as a last resort, begging me to help them conquer the urge to kill themselves.”

A Formidable Challenge

In the cry for freedom in pleasure, we come up against the obvious.






Malcolm Muggeridge did. He took the action of resigning as Rector at the University of Edinburgh and it was fuelled by a moral struggle – this one straw broke the camel’s back so to speak – the supplying of contraceptives to the student body (this was thirty years ago).

“So dear Edinburgh students, this may well be the last time I address you, and this is what I want to say – and I don’t really care whether it means anything to you or not, whether you think there is anything in it or not, I want you to believe that this row I have had with your elected officers has nothing to do with any puritanical attitudes on my part. 

I have no belief in abstinence for abstinence's own sake, no wish under any circumstances to check any fulfilment of our life and being. But I have to say to you this: that whatever life is or is not about, it is not to be expressed in terms of drug stupefaction and casual sexual relations, however we may venture into the unknown it is not I assure you on the plastic wings of Playboy magazine or psychedelic fancies."

Take a look at an insightful comparison made by Neil Postman in Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he compares the effects of George Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.
http://www.recombinantrecords.net/docs/2009-05-Amusing-Ourselves-to-Death.html

I know I do not have to belabour the point about a disconcerting truth that is being revealed survey after survey showing that in our private lives there is very little difference between those who claim to be followers of Christ and those who don’t. Preachers have reached into that pocket on more than one occasion.

Sigmund Freud : I have found little that is good about human beings on the whole. In my experience most of them are trash, no matter whether they publicly subscribe to this or that ethical doctrine or to none at all. That is something that you cannot say aloud, or perhaps even think.

I think Sigmund was having a bad day for this statement is somewhat harsh and overstated maybe, but not completely off the mark. We all, if we are honest, flounder for lack of clear direction and inner strength in a world of changing and multiplying options.

Back to more questions --
How can we find the delights that our hearts yearn for without victimizing ourselves in the process?
How can life be enjoyed with out profaning it in the process?

Here is what we know about pleasure --

• There is the pleasure of listening

• The pleasure of seeing

• The pleasure of taste and touch

• The pleasure of feeling and knowing

• The pleasure of being

Would this God who made such ecstasy in purity possible, deny us direction in pleasure?

How do we find genuine freedom to enjoy life's pleasures?

Why do we relentlessly seek God’s answers when in the midst of suffering, yet we never seem to pause with equal sincerity to ask Him for guidance or wisdom in pleasure and seem very uncertain about God’s presence in fun and pleasure?



We postmodernists blame God for all the bad and credit ourselves with all that is good.

Have we all bought into a belief that God is not interested in making life enjoyable?

Has the Christian faith somehow been moulded and reshaped to appear as a killer of pleasure or as a barrier to fun?

Have enjoyment and amusement now been handed over to “the world” so that the very idea of pleasure is seen as deadly to spirituality?

Can God give us a wide array of pleasures including the physical and the aesthetic that we may enjoy without feeling that it is a break from the routine for the Christian?

How do we learn to think constructively rather than to live pragmatically, making momentary decisions without guiding principles that will inform our choices?

What deep struggles and questions must engulf us as we are fed a steady diet of all that appeals to the eye and the imagination, with so little to nurture the conscience.

What damage could be done to us long before we have the maturity and inner strength to glean the good and to reject the lies.
 

subtle but enormous chasm...

In trying to find a solution for guilt, we have finally come to the realization that to get rid of this guilt requires more than we thought and find ourselves separated from forgiveness by a rather enormous chasm.

"Not all the perfumes of Arabia," said Lady Macbeth (Shakespeare) "can remove this spot." "This disease is beyond my cure," says the doctor.

I think that if we can only take the next step and say, "I am guilty of sin," then the answer comes suddenly -- "I have a Saviour for you."

He went to the cross to carry the penalty and pay the price. It was not cheap; it was God’s priceless gift of His Son to bear the guilt brought by the sin of the world.
There is a cost to forgiveness - this article outlines what the costs are for a husband who has been unfaithful to his wife, but could be equally true for an unfaithful wife as well - check out this amazing article that clearly spells out the cost http://newlife.com/the-cost-of-forgiveness/

Guilt is real and if left unattended it will be compounded by each self-serving effort of irreverence, pride, fear, dismissal of the moral, or the claim of innocence. With admission of sin, there is the start of genuine restoration, because guilt is first a vertical problem before it is a horizontal one.
God has been violated before we have.  That is why it is God’s prerogative to forgive first. Only the forgiven know what that feels like, to receive forgiveness, and that is why they then in turn are able to offer forgiveness to others when wronged.

Check out the words to this amazing hymn --http://www.luminarium.org/sevenlit/donne/hymntogod.php

Surrender Guilt to God's Grace

This is one of six responses that we have built into our life systems to deal with our guilt.

The biblical story of David and Bathsheba, focusing on Nathan’s timely entrance, probably exemplifies this best. Think of the number of ways David could have dealt with his guilt:
     – Nathan could have been arrested and killed
     – could have blamed Bathsheba
     – could have claimed the divine right of kings
     – could have abrogated the seventh commandment

Instead, he fell on his face before God and cried out…

Do you remember Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker and their PTL ministry (PTL stands for "Praise The Lord" but the press said it stood for "Pass the Loot"). In 1986 PTL's income was $129 million and included Heritage USA – a 2300-acre religious theme park, a hotel and a shopping mall in North Carolina and its own TV station on 1200 channels.

Jim Bakker had an affair with the church secretary Jessica Hahn in 1980 and resigned in 1987 when it came to light that he had paid her about $265,000 in blackmail money over the affair.

After his resignation, it was discovered that the Bakkers had been taking large amounts of money from the ministry fund, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in salaries for Bakker and his wife, insurance, property and other fees. The IRS investigated and discovered that the couple had diverted $4.8 million for personal use.

Part of that sum came from fraudulent $1,000 partnerships, which secured each partner three days per year of free lodging at the hotel in Heritage USA. However Bakker took the money from so many partners that it was a promise that he was unable to keep. Indeed the fraud was on such a scale that it was estimated that about 1500 people a month were being defrauded of their free time-share.

Jim Bakker was indicted for fraud in 1988 and sentenced to 45 years in prison and fined $500,000.

When the scandal broke, Bakker's Christian friends quickly deserted him. He became an outcast in the Christian world. And when he was sentenced, his wife Tammy Faye left him and then divorced him.

Six months into his sentence, Bakker was surprised one afternoon when the prison warden called him into his office. Bakker had a visitor: Billy Graham. When Graham came in, Bakker asked him why he had come to visit – because he knew that any association with Bakker would tarnish Graham's reputation.

Graham replied that Bakker was his friend in good and in bad times – and now when things were bad, he would stand by his side. And Billy Graham was true to his word.

Bakker's sentence was eventually reduced, on appeal, to ten years and when he came out of prison on parole, he had nowhere to stay.

So the Grahams invited him to stay with them.

On the Sunday following Bakker's release, Ruth Graham took him to church with her.

Disregarding what people would think about her, she stood up in church and introduced Jim Bakker to the congregation as her friend Jim Bakker.

I think that this illustrates the idea of what happens when we surrender our guilt to God.  Sin scorches us most after we receive the grace of forgiveness, not before.  The forgiven one realizes the gravity of the sin more when they are genuinely repentant and have been forgiven.

Summarizing our six points:

1. When expelled by irreverence, guilt makes life in mutual harmony unliveable
2. When smothered by pride it makes one’s life unaccountable
3. When concealed by fear it makes the pain unbearable
4. When dismissed as cultural it makes morality untenable
5. When claiming absolute innocence before God it makes the claim unjustifiable 
6. When guilt surrenders to the grace of God, it makes the sin forgivable

In religion:

• Hindus pays his Karma through millions of reincarnations 
• Muslims intones hopefully, “Insh Allah” – if God wills – and even at death never knows any certainty of forgiveness

In Christianity – anyone who comes to the cross know with a certainty that the debt has been paid

Deny Guilt by Innocence

Basically this means that we do not feel any guilt because we have lived a life as best as is possible and so repentance is not a necessary concept within our framework.

I still remember the day and where I was walking with my uncle and we had our conversation on heaven and hell.  Uncle Jacob couldn't believe that famous people, and he named a few that lived a good life, would go to hell.  He himself, who looked after my grandmother for years, doing all the menial work that went along with that - he said do you believe I will go to hell even after all of that?

He was implying that there was no hell, and if he had to play harps all day in heaven, he would rather spend eternity in hell.

“British journalist and Christian Malcolm Muggeridge has stated (paraphrased) that the doctrine of the total depravity of man is the most empirically demonstrable doctrine in the bible, yet it is the one most universally denied. The basic idea is that when we look around, we see the sinfulness of mankind played out on every stage. In every newspaper, every news website, every television news program, we see the evidence of the sinfulness of mankind on display. Yet this doctrine is often denied, because we don't like to think of ourselves as 'bad people.' Some of these people would say that we are born 'basically good.' Others would see us as being 'good, with the choice to do good or evil.' These people note, rightly enough, that we don't do everything bad that we could do. Even some of the most evil people have some good qualities.”

It is true that Jesus did not come into this world to make bad people good. He came into this world to make dead people live.  Those who were dead to God were to be made alive to Him through the work of the Holy Spirit, 

        •What do we mean by good anyway?
        •Do we each have our own definition?
        •Do we deny everyone else the right to have their own definition of good?

I think that we all think we see the big picture.  We think we see everything there is to see.  However, bring a microscope to bear upon an object, and a world we didn't see suddenly startles the mind as it comes into view.  That's in effect how God sees the world - He sees everything.

A woman died and could not go to Heaven because she had been mean and cruel to everyone all her life. She went to Hell, and from there she prayed for mercy. Was there no way she could be admitted to Heaven?

The angel who guards the gates looked around and asked all the souls in Heaven, "Is there anyone here who has ever had a kind word or an act of generosity from this woman?" Only one stepped forth. He said that in life he had been a starving beggar, and one time this woman had given him an onion. The angel told him, “Bring me the onion.” It wasn’t much of an onion—small and shriveled—a pretty poor meal even for a beggar. Would it be enough of an act of kindness to raise the old woman out of Hell?

The angel took the onion and reached down with it into Hell. The old woman grasped it and the angel began to pull her up. The thin dry stalk seemed like it might snap at any minute, but as she held onto it, her feet were lifted from the ground. The other damned souls around her saw her beginning to rise Heavenward and they grabbed at her skirts and her feet, hoping to be pulled up with her. The onion stalk was so spindly. Would it hold?

The old woman looked down at the other damned souls clinging to her and yelled, “Let go! It’s my onion!” And with that, the onion broke.

•Russian author Fyodor Dostoevsky (who also wrote Crime and Punishment)

Claiming complete innocence in the eyes of God is unjustifiable.

Dismiss Guilt as Cultural

This is one of six responses that we have built into our life systems to deal with our guilt.
The most convenient escape in a confused society is to glibly brush aside guilt as a cultureal appendage.  Such academic dismissal of moral reality fails to take into account that even when we differ culturally from one another in our behaviour, the reasons that justify that behaviour are often the same – meta-ethical similarities.

Moral understanding transcends particular societies and cultures.

We find lots of wickedness, self-deception, insincerity and hypocrisy at the United Nations. But we find too that diplomats understand each other’s arguments, and that they often quarrel about each other’s factual premises but rarely about pure moral principle. No one defends acknowledged unprovoked aggression. Hence, it appears that there is a transnational understanding of moral reasoning.

Conceal Guilt by Fear

This is one of six responses that we have built into our life systems to deal with our guilt.

The most tormenting way to deal with guilt - conceal it and live with the fear of exposure.

Maybe envy is the only one of the seven deadly sins that does not bring immediate gratification and fear adds apprehension to remorse in the midst of guilt.

As we learn from the movies, the blackmailer is never satisfied or sufficiently compensated, as is the one who lives in fear while nursing guilt ends up by blackmailing his or her own heart in order to pay the mind. And the heart is never consoled, for the mind is never sufficiently paid.

A wrong that is concealed seldom stops within the one who harbours that hurt. 

The pain is sooner or later spread to others, particularly to those closest to us. Victimless crimes are an illusion.

The story of Jacob’s deception of his father shows us how a nation was wronged as a result – deceit is a monster that needs constant feeding.

In an attempt to steal the blessing, Jacob thought he would only deceive his father and flee to some place of refuge until his father’s anger subsided. But his duplicity severely wounded the entire household. Because of his sin he would be absent from his mother’s bedside when she died.

Esau spent years tracking him down, and when the moment of confrontation between the brothers finally arrived, Jacob wrestled all night in prayer because of his fear that the wrong he had committed years before would be avenged against his children.

He could no longer run.

SAT-7 lives, operates and shares the Gospel in this area of the world where the harsh reality is that during thousands of years of history in the Middle East blood has been spilled because of wrongs that were carried forward for generations.

Experience dictates that sensitivity be at the forefront when dealing with one overtaken by fear. At the same time truth demands that such an individual be honestly addressed lest, in a desire not to add to the pain they already feel, we rob them of the possibility of healing – I am thinking of abuse at the moment.

No one wants to admit that at the heart of our malady is a mangled spirituality. The story from Greek mythology of Aprhrodite’s infidelities may still have something to say to us.  Living as she was in her unfaithfulness, she gave birth to two sons among others, one called Eros and the other called Phobos. Illicit indulgences beget eroticism and fear. This generation has birthed these twin monsters.

If expelling guilt by irreverence makes life unlivable and smothering it by pride makes one’s life unaccountable, then concealing guilty by fear makes life unbearable.

Smother Guilt by Pride

This is one of six responses that we have built into our life systems to deal with our guilt.

How we are perceived in public or esteemed by our circle of friends is for most people an all-consuming passion.

Listen carefully to the rationalizing and the explanations when a person is charged with having violated a law or is exposed for unsavoury behaviour.

The sinister manoeuvres towards self-exoneration – there is no limit to which the mind will not stoop for cover when wanting to appear justified.

Adam blamed Eve, Eve blamed the serpent and it appeared that the buck stopped there.  King Saul was
a humble man who became king of Israel saw nothing in himself to make him worthy of such privilege.  Yet the brief enjoyment of power left its deadly aftertaste and poisoned his mind into believing that he was indeed due that greatness and acclaim.

•To strut into a courtroom guilty and claim innocence is not power but weakness
•To refuse to acknowledge failure is not success but self-deception
•To resist repentance before God is not intelligence but folly
•To be puffed up with pride in the face of wrongdoing is not to become bigger but to become hollow

“Of all the causes which conspire to blind our erring judgment, and misguide the mind; What the weak head with strongest bias rules, - Is pride, the never-failing vice of fools” - Alexander Pope, English Poet, 1688-1744

“The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.” - C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

This is why, as Jesus finished his 40 days in the desert, Satan presented his first two temptations before Jesus, appealing to His pride was an essential element - changing the stones to bread, and the world will follow you and jump and see if the angels will protect you.

"Humility is thinking less about yourself not thinking less of yourself. Pride is not pleasure in being praised, wanting to please others. The truly proud person could care less what others think of her…” - Peter Kreeft, Professor of Philosophy at Boston College

The lowest point of pride comes when an excuse to explain a choice is not even sought because the choice is deemed sufficient explanation for any action. When a point of not caring for any other person’s counsel or warning has been reached, when we bask in our own success, thinking ourselves invincible, then God might need to take drastic measures to break that stranglehold upon us.

 "In order to overcome their pride, God punishes certain men by allowing them to fall into sins of the flesh which, though they be less grievous, are evidently, outwardly, humanly more shameful. From this, indeed, the gravity of pride is made manifest, for just as a wise physician in order to cure a worse disease allows the patient to contract one that is less dangerous, so the sin of pride is shown to be more grievous by the very fact that as a remedy, God allows men to fall into other sins.” - Thomas Aquinas

Jesus consistently reminded His audience that the glory of His kingdom was not shown in the power of individual attainments but in the simplicity of a little child’s faith.