2 – 1 – 17 Submission and Pride


I thought I had decided a long time ago to give my life over to Christ but I’m realizing now how untrue that was. I dedicated myself to resolving certain issues within myself, but not through Him, just for Him. In retrospect, this is completely idiotic. What can I do for God? What can I do for anyone or anything without going through Him?

I think I have a great deal of fear about losing my life, so much so that I was lying to myself, saying I had really given it up when I hadn’t. So long as I hold onto my petty vices, my prides, so long as I guard those things that I say are part of myself but which I know are not part of who he wants me to be, I can’t move forward at all. That’s been the most frustrating part, I can’t change anything about myself without changing everything.

I can’t be a little more charitable, but remain committed to my unchastity. The same self-control I’ll develop through chastity will help make me charitable. Furthermore, chastity will make me see everyone as truly a person rather than a sexual object, which also makes charity much easier.

There’s no parallel relationship to it, because there’s no one else who demands not only that you reveal everything about yourself, but that you subject everything about yourself to change. How difficult. It is so, appropriately, difficult.

I suppose the concept does capture my imagination though. To be transformed, rather than simply changed, into something beyond my desires is perhaps the most exciting thing one could hear. The idea that resting inside is a marvelous creature of great wisdom and love is exhilarating. This feeling is usually either kept in the wrong way by wanting to achieve that independently, or altered considerably by the realization that this change only comes as part of a complete subjugation to Christ.

What are my vices worth to me? Well pride, I don’t think I get that much out of pride. I think it is an end goal, I think many of the other sins in my life set up pride as their bargaining chip. Saying, “pursue this, and you’ll feel great about yourself”. I suppose that happens more for me than others. Others may be persuaded more by the simple pleasures of their wrongdoing, using evil to get good, while I use evil to pursue more evil. I’d much rather be in the other boat than I am in. Pride is the motivation for my stubbornness, the reward for my aggression, and the primary reason I’ll refuse to change.

And here I come up against it again. If I didn’t have so much pride, I would have the kind of attitude necessary to change. If I want to change something, anything, I have to get rid of my pride first. I may achieve chastity, but if I achieve it with a proud heart it really does me no good. Rather than moving me closer to the type of person I am to be it will simply make me more proud, constantly patting myself on the back for my virtue while disdaining soddomites and fornicators. So anything I do that seems inherently good in a proud heart I’ll attribute to myself, and therefore just increase my pride in equal measure to my increase in any virtue. Not that these gains and losses could ever cancel out as they don’t exist on the same field, pride is spiritual, penetrating every aspect of my life. While I may develop skills in a pursuit of chastity than I can apply to being more charitable, the actual bit of chastity never really comes in.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

6 - 27 - 17 Pigs, Dogs, and Photographs

6 – 27 – 17 Link to Daily Readings “all the land that you see I will give to you and your descendants forever.” God has great plans for us. Far greater than we could imagine for ourselves, and I suspect in most cases somewhat greater than we want for ourselves. Indeed I think many of us are not scared off from faith because it is boring, but because it is intimidating. Consider what would happen if we really dedicated our existence to following God’s will. Imagine the chances we’d have to take, the risks we’d endure. I find the possibility far more exciting than any Marvel movie, and its converse is deathly boring. To be wicked, not necessarily a criminal, is a very simple thing to do. It is almost always easy to predict what the selfish person will do. It is neither very gratifying, for there are never any testing moments, never any triumphs of spirit. One’s end goal is the material comforts and pleasures of this world, which are only satisfying in their moment and m...
Read more

2 - 28 - 18 Nicaragua Reflection ( 2 minutes )

The following is a reflection I wrote Wednesday night last week, after our second day of work on the site. I plan on having a couple-three more posts about this trip as I unpack everything that happened and everything I learned. --------------------------------------------- Why did God send me on this ASB? I always know the answer. I am well-informed, put together, I've got it figured out. But how much of that is because of where I'm from, who I am in the merely demographic sense? Is the level of organization in my life a result of valiant efforts to clear through wilderness, or due to the fact that I was born into order and prosperity? How diligent am I doing homework on a dirt floor? How politically idealistic am I when I've lost cousins, uncles, and grandparents to slogans and ideologies? How smart am I when I'm ignorant? When I don't know the history, or geography, or the culture. What do I have to say that's worth saying? What can I say [in Span...
Read more

1 - 9 - 18 Same Old Questions, No New Answers

This morning I listened to Art of Charm podcast #685 about the positive effects of encouraging pro-social emotions such as compassion, gratitude, and the correct kind of pride. Compassion will make it easier for us to perform unselfish acts because we’ll actually wish to do them. Gratitude grants us greater life satisfaction holding actual quality of life equal. And pride, not hubris, will instill the kind of confidence in our abilities that will make us more willing to share and take risks. This will in turn make people want to collaborate with us more readily. I’m trying to summarize the podcast as briefly as possible because it’s not really the point I want to get to. The point I’m trying to get to is that the new wisdom we generate every year through social experiments and psychological studies is not new at all! The new research, the new self-help books, the new “life-hacks” that come out perennially aren’t unique, aren’t original, aren’t new . And this isn’t a phenom...
Read more