Came across this quote today:
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
I have talked to a lot of people lately who would agree with this statement. People like Chopra, for example. But the challenge comes not in recognizing our responsibility in our problems as much in how our world view impacts the way we process that culpability.
As a follower of Christ, I am led to see sin as the source of all that is wrong in the world. When sin was introduced into the world, God's Shalom was disrupted and mankind lost balance with their relationship with God, with each other, with themselves, and with the created order. What used to be characterized by peace and harmony (balance) was now broken and characterized by disharmony, mistrust, distance, and shame. This helps explain everything from Hurricane Katrina to my childhood fist fights with my brother.
But Sophocles is right - it isn't enough to see that all our problems are caused by "sin" - as if it were some force "out there" (like the devil made me do it mentality). We need to come to see sin as a very personal problem. It is clearly a broader metaphysical problem, but it is also a very personal, very near problem.
The world is isn't just in trouble because of sin. It is in trouble because I am a sinner. I am personally misaligned with God, with others, with the world, and even with myself. I am the source of my problems.
The beauty of the gospel is that while I am the source of my problems, I am not left to myself to come up with the solution. Like the metaphor - you just gotta pull yourself up by your boot straps - it just wouldn't be possible. No amount of self effort can help me climb to heaven and realign myself with God. But, thankfully, God came down to us, born as a man, to die as our substitute - in order to destroy the power of sin by offering us a way to be realigned with God through faith in his finished work.
The keenest of sorrows has become the greatest of news - as we see that while we are more broken than we dare imagine, we are also more loved than we dare hope.
The keenest sorrow is to recognize ourselves as the sole cause of all our adversities.
- Sophocles
I have talked to a lot of people lately who would agree with this statement. People like Chopra, for example. But the challenge comes not in recognizing our responsibility in our problems as much in how our world view impacts the way we process that culpability.
As a follower of Christ, I am led to see sin as the source of all that is wrong in the world. When sin was introduced into the world, God's Shalom was disrupted and mankind lost balance with their relationship with God, with each other, with themselves, and with the created order. What used to be characterized by peace and harmony (balance) was now broken and characterized by disharmony, mistrust, distance, and shame. This helps explain everything from Hurricane Katrina to my childhood fist fights with my brother.
But Sophocles is right - it isn't enough to see that all our problems are caused by "sin" - as if it were some force "out there" (like the devil made me do it mentality). We need to come to see sin as a very personal problem. It is clearly a broader metaphysical problem, but it is also a very personal, very near problem.
The world is isn't just in trouble because of sin. It is in trouble because I am a sinner. I am personally misaligned with God, with others, with the world, and even with myself. I am the source of my problems.
The beauty of the gospel is that while I am the source of my problems, I am not left to myself to come up with the solution. Like the metaphor - you just gotta pull yourself up by your boot straps - it just wouldn't be possible. No amount of self effort can help me climb to heaven and realign myself with God. But, thankfully, God came down to us, born as a man, to die as our substitute - in order to destroy the power of sin by offering us a way to be realigned with God through faith in his finished work.
The keenest of sorrows has become the greatest of news - as we see that while we are more broken than we dare imagine, we are also more loved than we dare hope.
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