"I desire to do your will, O my God; your law is within my heart."
- Psalm 40:8
This is a very interesting piece of scripture. It's very simple yet very powerful. "I will do what you tell me; I know your rules, and I will follow them." Why, if we know how amazing and powerful God is, do we not do what he says all the time? When I try to do something on my own, it doesn't always work out. If I tap into God's infinite wisdom and power, it always works out. This one of the basic enigmas of Christianity. Our sinful nature at birth is the cause. If you have ever seen a two year old with a toy, you will know what I'm talking about. If you take the toy away from that child (besides crying), what will he/she do? They will say MINE, MINE, MINE. Why? Did we teach the child to do that? Of course not. We try to teach our children to share. So why are children that young so selfish? It is our nature.
I have thought about this and studied this for a long time. Why are we the way we are by nature? This was not God's original intention for our lives. At the garden, Adam and Eve bit the apple of knowledge and God punished mankind with the truth of the world; Of the devil, hard work, shame, etc. etc. That's why this very simple passage of scripture is so difficult for a human being to grasp and to follow. We are by nature a sinful, greedy, immature people. I'm just so glad that God always offers us the opportunity to share in his wealth and his eternalness. All we have to do is desire to do His will. That's it! Its so simple, isn't it....
I was thinking about what you said about how it is a child's inherent nature to be selfish. I have seen the other side of this. I have seen the sweet purity of children being unselfish and extremely compassionate. I have seen children give there last cookie or empty their toy boxes to give toys to children less fortunate then themselves. Why do you suppose they are much different than those that don't? Having a brother and growing up with him in an abusive household. We bother grew up with abuse but each dealt with it differently. Through our growing up even at a young age we made very different decisions. Some babies are very happy and hardly ever cry unless there is something seriously wrong and some cry all the time for no apparent reason or to just get attention. I think this goes back to God having a plan and purpose for each one of us. God knowing us while we were yet in our mothers womb. I think some of us live more by and through our spirit man than our flesh man. What are your thoughts?
ReplyDeleteI know its been a while since your responded but...
ReplyDeleteI agree that childrens nature is muck more pure than an adults nature, but that's just because we learned that we can manipulate the world around us based on our actions. Of course there are nice, pleasant children that are "angels". There are people like that as well. I was just referring to the deep seeded nature of man, put in us by our knowledge off good and evil.