It is so hard to go read the news online to see what is happening each day… the latest horrific assassination by Isis, kids blowing up themselves and others, the heroin O.D.s, the latest suicide, murder, maiming, abusing… just one ugly after another happening all over the world.
Even in little old Vermont… drugs are all over up here now, addicts stealing from wherever they can break in… haven’t seen too many armed robberies of convenience stores lately… seems they have upgraded to robbing banks (guess they have more money at banks)… it is crazy.
Our neighbor stopped by tonight and I was mentioning some of this… got a normal response… “what is wrong with these people?” I hear that regularly from our guests at the B&B too… they talk about all the uglies and then something is said along this line “How can people do these terrible things”… So I told my neighbor I probably would need to write about that tonight.
See… our problem is that we really believe people are basically good. That’s just not true. Philip’s heart is basically wrong, not basically right. Of course, I need to see that in me, not in other people. I needed to see that I am not basically good. Something happened to me when I made that decision to eat from the wrong tree and started playing God. I am wrong. I cannot get it right, or even begin to do “good” things without a heart transplant. Thankful that I got one.
I have seen what Philip is capable of… even if it just stayed in my mind and I didn’t act on it. Lots of uglies in there. Very thankful that there are not as many as there used to be… the more He lives His life in me, the less there is of me… the less of me, the less of the uglies.
It is called our “natural man”… and it is pretty ugly.
I am finding that people can turn back to that natural man from a more godly one…. the flesh is a strong pull. Choose LIFE, not DEATH, every day and walk close to the Shepherd, lest you go astray!