This is Part 5 of my series "The Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins". I've already discussed Pride, Lust, Slothfulness, and Wrath. Here I will address Envy and it's counterpart, "External Provision". Then in Part 6 and 7 I will address Gluttony and Greed. After that, I will start to put some of the pieces together because it all forms one big terrain and map. And as a reminded, everything in this description is metaphorical. It is a picture, a concrete object that represents the issues we deal with in regards to the Seven Deadly Sins and what they corrupt of God's original creation.
Envy is closely associated with coveting. It is seeing something that someone else has and desiring that something as though it is your right to have it. The common cliche that is well associated to this behavior is "the grass is always greener on the other side". Envy is not being satisfied with what God has provided you and it is effectively saying "You aren't giving me enough." What this attitude actually says is "God, you aren't giving me what I want." There is a big difference between our wants and our needs. God promises to provide what we need, and that often is less than what we want. What we need goes beyond just food, clothing, and shelter. It includes everything we need to do the job God wants us to do. For some that includes some wealth and means of transportation. For others it may mean getting by on what we have. Now before I go further, I want to clarify that the poorest of the poor, the homeless, etc, are not necessarily that was because God wants them that way. God providing and our means of using what he provides are not always the same thing too. If God gives us a job, it is our responsibility to work that job. And if we don't have a job, it is our responsibility to go do something to be productive with our time. So there is one issue of God's provision and our responsibility to manage them. But there is the other issue of seeing God provide for someone else or seeing someone else manage their resources for pleasure rather than God's intention that will get us into trouble. Envy is not being satisfied with what God has provided for us externally and wanted something more. Envy does not deal with internal issues. That is reserved for Gluttony.
So what type of terrain would display this scenario where we must be content with what we have or be envious of what others have, or envious of what we don't have? The issues brought up here are well illustrated in the Parable of the Talents where one servant was given five talents, another two, and another one, each in accordance to their ability. That is an important phrase that is often forgotten: "in accordance to their ability". Someone who is given five talents is expected to be able to manage and use five talents. Someone who only has one talent, is only responsible for that one talent. But we often think "if only we had more talents, we could do more with it", failing to understand that if we had more talents we would be responsible for those extra talents. We are not called to get extra talents just to use one. The servant who had five talents would be questioned differently if he only used four of those five talents. He is expected to use all five, not just two, three, or four of them. And likewise, the servant who only has one was only expected to use that one. And all in accordance to their abilities. God gave us each skills and abilities for a particular set of tasks and some tasks requires only a certain set of talents. And too often, instead of trying to use the talents we have, we look at other's talents and we become envious of them.
The terrain that best describes this type of setting is a arid farmland. It is not a lush, overabundant farmland where hardly any work needs to be done for it to produce. It produces precisely what you need. The land is rich enough to provide sod to build a sod house, it is watered enough to grow the crops, but not in overabundance where you can go several seasons without planting. It is just enough to get you by day to day so you can plant and harvest in the next season. You have sufficient cattle and herds to provide you with clothes, meat, milk, etc. This terrain teaches you to depend on the provision God has for you. It is a lesson I have learned growing up. I recall a six-month period when I was between 12-15 (ish) when all my family had to eat was day-old bagels, yogurt, and eggs. It wasn't much. But it got us by. We had bagels served in more way that we would like to imagine and it was still 'better' than what the Israelites had with Manna. The difference? We had different flavors. It was enough, but God provided. And though we had the opportunity, we did not envy those who had full fridges and pantries next door to us. We could have, but we didn't, because we chose to rely on the Lord providing for us.
Envy rears its ugly head with neighbors who produce more lush fields. The problem is that we want that excess for ourselves and don't understand that God intended that excess to be given away. Any excess we get is not meant to be spent on ourselves, but to provide for those who do not have means of getting their needs met. But envy does not come just in the form of a better crop or more cattle and stock. It can come in the form of a better house. If you are living in a sod house, and you see someone in a mansion, it may be hard to avoid being envious. But what if that person also had a sod house, just in a different size or shape, or layout? I have heard stories of people being envious of a simple think like a porch roof over their front door. The grass is always greener on the other side.
But Envy has a reverse effect as well. I was describing the not-so-wealthy being envious of the wealthy. But the reverse also has the same effect. What if the wealthy person did not like having the over abundant provision to aid the poor and would rather bury his talents instead of using them? Is it not possible for the rich to be envious of the poor because they would prefer a simpler lifestyle? One could answer, "Yes, but they could simply downsize and give away their resources." If one has a mind-set of God's provision and being generous, yes. But envy is self-focused. Envy won't release the resources it has because it is thinking of that rainy day occasion. Envy may want to live simpler but can't. This can quickly overlap with Pride/Shame.
We may live in a not so comfortable region with the not so best co-workers or neighbors, and we may not have all the resources or toys we would like to have. If we trust in God's provision, he will give us all we need and as along as we align our desires to his desires, he will give us the desires of our heart. But Envy will always seek what we think is the better situation instead of taking advantage of the resources we already have. Envy focuses on the resources we don't have and as a result, we will miss what we do have. Envy has a partner in crime as well: the Devourer. If we serve money (for example) far greater riches will only go half the distance they should than smaller riches. And I can attest to this myself. In my family, I know we have way more money going out on expenditures, bills, and giving, than we have coming in. It's a significant more going out than coming in. Yet the bills are always paid for on time. I'm a math person and I know this is numerically impossible. So we call it God math because he is providing for us where in the natural we would not have it. But Envy's partner is a Devourer and twice the resources will only go half the distance if we let Envy rule our terrain.
Next post will be on the Deadly Sin: Gluttony and its contrast to Internal Satisfaction.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Saturday, December 7, 2013
The Terrain of Wrath vs Severe Mercy
This is Part 4 of the "Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins", continuing the theme of describing the terrain that will be used for Catharsis Hall, an interactive Bible-study/game that helps us to address our problems before our problems deal with us. Everything in Catharsis Hall is a metaphor for what we deal with in our lives. And depending on the player, different things may reveal themselves. But I am helping lay out the foundation of what kind of terrain we may face depending on whether God is ruler of our lives or if sin is ruling our lives. Part 1 of this series dealt with Pride vs Humility. Part 2 dealt with Lust vs Intimacy. Part 3 dealt with Slothfulness vs Rest. And here in Part 4, I will deal with Wrath vs Severe Mercy.
My friend who is the one doing the primary development of Catharsis Hall asked me a very interesting question last week when I was visiting with him. "What drives God's mercy? His love or his wrath?" We too often think about God's mercy and God's love being part of the same coin. But this question got me thinking and I could not find a reason against it. We have all heard the phrase "all bark, and no bite". But another quote my friend gave me that is truly appropriate here. He could see God saying "I bark because I fear my bite. And you should too." As much as we fear and dread hell, we don't nearly as much as God dreads us having to endure it. He knows what separation from him is going to entail and he knows his purity, his character, and his justice MUST punish the sin. He knows he has to throw the switch and I see now that God's mercy is not just driven by his love for us, but by his knowledge of what his wrath would do to us without it.
Now Wrath is a tricky topic because it is the only one of the Seven Deadly Sins that actually has a Godly form. Pride, Lust, Slothfulness, Envy, Gluttony, and Greed don't have a Godly form. They have a Godly opposite, but not a Godly form. Godly wrath is directed at sin and that which is associated with it. But because of our sin, our wrath is often misdirected. When I was thinking about what kind of terrain we would see wrath in, the first picture that came to mind is a volcano. My friend had a picture of steam which is also appropriate. Steam is a powerful metaphor. Water is a very powerful force. Fire is also a very powerful force. But when combined, you get steam. Steam is more powerful than the two forces of water and fire combined. Water is love. Fire is hate, preferably geared in the right direction. Steam is passion. And when someone messes with something we love, that passion can turn up the heat VERY quickly. But an interesting observation of steam is that with all steam based technology, when ever there is a disaster or a malfunction, it is always due to mishandling the machinery, as opposed to the steam itself that will cause it. Wrath has the same function.
So keeping with the metaphor that the land is a metaphor of our body, our mind, our emotions, etc, when we deal with Wrath, we are dealing with a volcanic terrain. Mountainous but like any volcano, it could explode. Volcanoes remain dormant or have mild eruptions when they have appropriate vents for the heat and pressure. When we see or experience and injustice, wrath builds up like the pressure of a volcano. And if the vents are not open as they should be, it can turn a volcano from a life-bringing mountain to a terrifying bomb. Lava has a very interesting property in that when it covers land, it destroys the old stuff with fire. But the plants and forests that are burned down from a lava flow tend to grow back VERY quickly and will be much healthier than it was beforehand. There is a secret to Resurrection that many of us forget and don't want to face. There is nothing that if it is not dead, it cannot be brought back to life.However, if the appropriate vents are plugged up, the volcano cannot release its pressure and heat for a good, healthy eruption that will grow new life. There is no Resurrection if it first does not die. But if those vents and releasing of pressure are not set and open, our volcano becomes another Mt. St. Helens.
When Mt. St. Helens erupted, it destroyed the landscape. The mountain itself dropped in height by about 1300 feet. The whole top of the mountain totally blew off and it will never return to what it was beforehand. There is more to the eruption than just the top blowing off. Two major things followed. A pyroclastic flow, which is the cloud of super-hot ash that incinerates everything upon contact. And a la-hare. A la-hare is the deadliest form of mudflow. Mt. St. Helens had a glacier on top of the mountain and when it erupted, all that ice and water melted quickly and flowed downhill. This water mixed with the dirt, rocks, mud, trees, and any other form of debris it picked up to form what was like fast moving concrete, carving a new canyon on a 1/20th scale of the Grand Canyon literally overnight. It was permanent damage, despite the fact that the forests have regrown since.
Mt. St. Helens gives a perfect picture of what wrath can do to us. If we harbor it, it will erupt violently when we least expect it. And though we may calm down and not explode for a long time, when we erupt, it will permanently scar us AND those around us. We may heal from that, but those scars will remain. But if God rules our land, he will use the same volcano to burn away what should not be there to plant new growth and new life.
Two other things I've mentioned that goes with volcanic terrain: glaciers and geysers. Glaciers have a two-way effect. They are cold as ice (pun intended) and our anger, our wrath, and our bitterness can easily be just as cold. It cuts off life, it ever changes, and it is easy to get lost in. A glacier often has numerous brutal crevasses, some that we see, and some that we don't. And those crevasses may not be possible to get out. You do not want to enter tunnels in a glacier unless you have no other choice. The reason why is because of the ever changing nature of the glacier. You may enter a tunnel even if you have a line all the way back, you may not be able to get out because it could change on you. Anger is like this. It is easy to get lost in it and to get trapped in it. And wrath entangles us so well and it is very difficult to see how to escape from it. And Wrath is called one of the Seven Deadly Sins for a reason: because it is often deadly. And this terrain describes how deadly it can be. But a glacier does more than kill. It is a provider of fresh water. Glacier water is some of the purest water we can find on the planet. It is cold, but it is pure. This is an example of Wrath leading to Severe Mercy. It is using a very dangerous thing that can only be used rightly when God is in control of it to provide life.
The other thing is a geyser. Hot water, or a hot springs. Water naturally heated by geothermal activity underneath. Steam power transformed the US in the 1800's, launching us into the Industrial Revolution. The Hot Springs in Glenwood Springs, Colorado were often a place to go for healing. The hot waters would sooth the body and help to fight illnesses we could not fight otherwise. In this terrain, there would be hot springs that we could turn to for healing. That is God's severe mercy which is fed by his wrath.
There is more to all this, but that is all I can wrap my head around right now, even with the notes I have. Wrath is destructive, but Severe Mercy can use destruction to wipe out that which is destructive and create new life. It is the same material. The same terrain. But the results depend on who rules it. Is our passion going to be a life-giving action that will destroy the sin that eats at us and gives new life, or will it turn us into a Mt. St. Helens that is ready to explode when the right triggers shows up? That is Wrath vs Severe Mercy. Next is Part 5: Envy vs External Provision. That one is going to hit a few people rather hard once we realize what we do with it.
My friend who is the one doing the primary development of Catharsis Hall asked me a very interesting question last week when I was visiting with him. "What drives God's mercy? His love or his wrath?" We too often think about God's mercy and God's love being part of the same coin. But this question got me thinking and I could not find a reason against it. We have all heard the phrase "all bark, and no bite". But another quote my friend gave me that is truly appropriate here. He could see God saying "I bark because I fear my bite. And you should too." As much as we fear and dread hell, we don't nearly as much as God dreads us having to endure it. He knows what separation from him is going to entail and he knows his purity, his character, and his justice MUST punish the sin. He knows he has to throw the switch and I see now that God's mercy is not just driven by his love for us, but by his knowledge of what his wrath would do to us without it.
Now Wrath is a tricky topic because it is the only one of the Seven Deadly Sins that actually has a Godly form. Pride, Lust, Slothfulness, Envy, Gluttony, and Greed don't have a Godly form. They have a Godly opposite, but not a Godly form. Godly wrath is directed at sin and that which is associated with it. But because of our sin, our wrath is often misdirected. When I was thinking about what kind of terrain we would see wrath in, the first picture that came to mind is a volcano. My friend had a picture of steam which is also appropriate. Steam is a powerful metaphor. Water is a very powerful force. Fire is also a very powerful force. But when combined, you get steam. Steam is more powerful than the two forces of water and fire combined. Water is love. Fire is hate, preferably geared in the right direction. Steam is passion. And when someone messes with something we love, that passion can turn up the heat VERY quickly. But an interesting observation of steam is that with all steam based technology, when ever there is a disaster or a malfunction, it is always due to mishandling the machinery, as opposed to the steam itself that will cause it. Wrath has the same function.
So keeping with the metaphor that the land is a metaphor of our body, our mind, our emotions, etc, when we deal with Wrath, we are dealing with a volcanic terrain. Mountainous but like any volcano, it could explode. Volcanoes remain dormant or have mild eruptions when they have appropriate vents for the heat and pressure. When we see or experience and injustice, wrath builds up like the pressure of a volcano. And if the vents are not open as they should be, it can turn a volcano from a life-bringing mountain to a terrifying bomb. Lava has a very interesting property in that when it covers land, it destroys the old stuff with fire. But the plants and forests that are burned down from a lava flow tend to grow back VERY quickly and will be much healthier than it was beforehand. There is a secret to Resurrection that many of us forget and don't want to face. There is nothing that if it is not dead, it cannot be brought back to life.However, if the appropriate vents are plugged up, the volcano cannot release its pressure and heat for a good, healthy eruption that will grow new life. There is no Resurrection if it first does not die. But if those vents and releasing of pressure are not set and open, our volcano becomes another Mt. St. Helens.
When Mt. St. Helens erupted, it destroyed the landscape. The mountain itself dropped in height by about 1300 feet. The whole top of the mountain totally blew off and it will never return to what it was beforehand. There is more to the eruption than just the top blowing off. Two major things followed. A pyroclastic flow, which is the cloud of super-hot ash that incinerates everything upon contact. And a la-hare. A la-hare is the deadliest form of mudflow. Mt. St. Helens had a glacier on top of the mountain and when it erupted, all that ice and water melted quickly and flowed downhill. This water mixed with the dirt, rocks, mud, trees, and any other form of debris it picked up to form what was like fast moving concrete, carving a new canyon on a 1/20th scale of the Grand Canyon literally overnight. It was permanent damage, despite the fact that the forests have regrown since.
Mt. St. Helens gives a perfect picture of what wrath can do to us. If we harbor it, it will erupt violently when we least expect it. And though we may calm down and not explode for a long time, when we erupt, it will permanently scar us AND those around us. We may heal from that, but those scars will remain. But if God rules our land, he will use the same volcano to burn away what should not be there to plant new growth and new life.
Two other things I've mentioned that goes with volcanic terrain: glaciers and geysers. Glaciers have a two-way effect. They are cold as ice (pun intended) and our anger, our wrath, and our bitterness can easily be just as cold. It cuts off life, it ever changes, and it is easy to get lost in. A glacier often has numerous brutal crevasses, some that we see, and some that we don't. And those crevasses may not be possible to get out. You do not want to enter tunnels in a glacier unless you have no other choice. The reason why is because of the ever changing nature of the glacier. You may enter a tunnel even if you have a line all the way back, you may not be able to get out because it could change on you. Anger is like this. It is easy to get lost in it and to get trapped in it. And wrath entangles us so well and it is very difficult to see how to escape from it. And Wrath is called one of the Seven Deadly Sins for a reason: because it is often deadly. And this terrain describes how deadly it can be. But a glacier does more than kill. It is a provider of fresh water. Glacier water is some of the purest water we can find on the planet. It is cold, but it is pure. This is an example of Wrath leading to Severe Mercy. It is using a very dangerous thing that can only be used rightly when God is in control of it to provide life.
The other thing is a geyser. Hot water, or a hot springs. Water naturally heated by geothermal activity underneath. Steam power transformed the US in the 1800's, launching us into the Industrial Revolution. The Hot Springs in Glenwood Springs, Colorado were often a place to go for healing. The hot waters would sooth the body and help to fight illnesses we could not fight otherwise. In this terrain, there would be hot springs that we could turn to for healing. That is God's severe mercy which is fed by his wrath.
There is more to all this, but that is all I can wrap my head around right now, even with the notes I have. Wrath is destructive, but Severe Mercy can use destruction to wipe out that which is destructive and create new life. It is the same material. The same terrain. But the results depend on who rules it. Is our passion going to be a life-giving action that will destroy the sin that eats at us and gives new life, or will it turn us into a Mt. St. Helens that is ready to explode when the right triggers shows up? That is Wrath vs Severe Mercy. Next is Part 5: Envy vs External Provision. That one is going to hit a few people rather hard once we realize what we do with it.
Thursday, December 5, 2013
The Terrain of Slothfulness vs Rest
This is Part 3 of the series of the Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins. To reiterate for those who missed the earlier posts (do read), this series is developing the land of a metaphorical "game" known as "Catharsis Hall". Catharsis Hall is an interactive study that helps us deal with the problems gripping us before those problems wreck havoc on us. The key concept is to take the abstract concept and provide a metaphor for it. And by addressing the issues in the metaphor, we are actually dealing with the real problem at the same time. Catharsis Hall is just a skeleton right now and as you engage the setting of the terrain, you learn more about yourself and what you are dealing with. And the way this interactive study works is simple. Plant yourself in the setting. It could be with a "role-playing" character that describes you. Take a look around you. What is there? Why is it there? Every object is a metaphor. And if a villain is there (which there are) how will you deal with it? In this series, I describe a setting and what happens to that setting when one of the Deadly Sins rules it, or what happens when God is the ruler over it. In Part 1, I addressed Pride vs Humility. In Part 2, I addressed Lust vs Intimacy. And here I will address Slothfulness vs Rest. First, I must address where this takes place. Because you can have two fight against each other without a battlefield for them to fight on.
This part talks about energy. How do you use it? Where is it directed to? What is using it? Newton's First Law comes into play here. An object in motion will tend to keep in motion, and an object at rest will tend to keep at rest until an outside force acts upon it. And when you look at it, we are like this as well. If we have an active lifestyle (I am not merely referencing physically. I am referencing simply being out there and doing something.), we prefer to stay in action. But if we get lazy and don't want to do anything, it takes a lot of effort to get going. But the comparison here is not just being lazy vs working, it is being lazy verses getting proper rest. When we live an active lifestyle, we make an active choice to go to bed so that we can restore our batteries to be active again tomorrow. When we take our Sabbath Day off work, we make an active choice to take a break so we can charge up for the next activity. But laziness is not "getting rest". Being a sloth, being lazy, is being unwilling to get up to get something done. Rest is intentional to be able to work later. Laziness has no intention to work anyway, or do the absolute minimal job possible.
So how would these two square off? Energy is well described with the water of a river. Water is the source of life of the land and moving water acts as a purifier. But stagnant water gets nasty very quickly. Water can be still in a lake but it will need to have some form of circulation underneath to stay fresh. So in this terrain, we have a river splitting up into a delta to feed a lush wetland. But in this delta are a series of sluice gates that store up water resources and can turn a small creek upriver into a mighty river downstream. And downstream, the delta joins back together to form a river that feeds many others. Before this happens, the water is diverted to small channels that will slow it down, turn water wheels, but keep the river refreshed. These channels will help purify the water and sift out the hard minerals or other things that have been thrown into the river so when it goes down stream, it is fresh and more pure. The sluice gates also play a role in this process.
However, all this would be if God is the ruler of the land (which a metaphor for your body). What happens to this land if slothfulness takes over? If our enemy takes over our land, the enemy will take control of the channels and sluice gates. They will break and smash some of the gates, and plants boulders or dams to block up the river's flow. If the flow of the river is impeded, it will cease flowing and become stagnant. And that will turn the lush wetland into a nasty, stinky, dead, bog. The water in a bog easily carries parasites, algae, and the dreaded mosquito. It rots the plant life and animals caught in the muck will die. But it gets worse. When the enemy takes over, and slothfulness rules, what little energies are left will be diverted to feed any other area controlled by said enemy. Slothfulness will easily feed gluttony, envy, wrath, and others. And with our river diverted to feed those dark tendencies, any water that makes it to the river's original course is little more than a trickle.
So how do we deal with this? First, it will take time and energy, something that slothfulness will seek to retain control over. We must first drive out the inhabitants of slothfulness, but driving out the mindset of slothfulness only does part of the job. If we don't transform the land back into a wet-land, we won't get out the bog. Remember what turned the wetland into a bog? Dams and broken down/abused sluice gates. To get energy flowing again, we may need to break some dams in our life. What is impeding our energy flows? What keeps us on the couch? Paint that idea, that concept, that mindset, as a metaphor in the shape of a dam or a boulder blocking the river's flow. Then blow it up. The only way to remove stagnant water from this bog is to replace it with fresh water and keep the river flowing. Fix the sluice gates. Remove any objects from impeding water flow.
This picture is not complete yet. I have ideas on what these sluice gates actually are supposed to represent but I'm not settled on them yet. And there may be many other things this wetland or bog may carry that are related to the issue of whether we are being rules by Slothfulness or by Godly Work and Rest. I expect to do Part 4 in the next few days. Part 4 will cover the issues of Wrath vs Severe Mercy. I will be addressing revenge, bitterness, and ungodly anger, vs doing something harsh knowing that the action will save the person in the end. It's going to be a good one.
This part talks about energy. How do you use it? Where is it directed to? What is using it? Newton's First Law comes into play here. An object in motion will tend to keep in motion, and an object at rest will tend to keep at rest until an outside force acts upon it. And when you look at it, we are like this as well. If we have an active lifestyle (I am not merely referencing physically. I am referencing simply being out there and doing something.), we prefer to stay in action. But if we get lazy and don't want to do anything, it takes a lot of effort to get going. But the comparison here is not just being lazy vs working, it is being lazy verses getting proper rest. When we live an active lifestyle, we make an active choice to go to bed so that we can restore our batteries to be active again tomorrow. When we take our Sabbath Day off work, we make an active choice to take a break so we can charge up for the next activity. But laziness is not "getting rest". Being a sloth, being lazy, is being unwilling to get up to get something done. Rest is intentional to be able to work later. Laziness has no intention to work anyway, or do the absolute minimal job possible.
So how would these two square off? Energy is well described with the water of a river. Water is the source of life of the land and moving water acts as a purifier. But stagnant water gets nasty very quickly. Water can be still in a lake but it will need to have some form of circulation underneath to stay fresh. So in this terrain, we have a river splitting up into a delta to feed a lush wetland. But in this delta are a series of sluice gates that store up water resources and can turn a small creek upriver into a mighty river downstream. And downstream, the delta joins back together to form a river that feeds many others. Before this happens, the water is diverted to small channels that will slow it down, turn water wheels, but keep the river refreshed. These channels will help purify the water and sift out the hard minerals or other things that have been thrown into the river so when it goes down stream, it is fresh and more pure. The sluice gates also play a role in this process.
However, all this would be if God is the ruler of the land (which a metaphor for your body). What happens to this land if slothfulness takes over? If our enemy takes over our land, the enemy will take control of the channels and sluice gates. They will break and smash some of the gates, and plants boulders or dams to block up the river's flow. If the flow of the river is impeded, it will cease flowing and become stagnant. And that will turn the lush wetland into a nasty, stinky, dead, bog. The water in a bog easily carries parasites, algae, and the dreaded mosquito. It rots the plant life and animals caught in the muck will die. But it gets worse. When the enemy takes over, and slothfulness rules, what little energies are left will be diverted to feed any other area controlled by said enemy. Slothfulness will easily feed gluttony, envy, wrath, and others. And with our river diverted to feed those dark tendencies, any water that makes it to the river's original course is little more than a trickle.
So how do we deal with this? First, it will take time and energy, something that slothfulness will seek to retain control over. We must first drive out the inhabitants of slothfulness, but driving out the mindset of slothfulness only does part of the job. If we don't transform the land back into a wet-land, we won't get out the bog. Remember what turned the wetland into a bog? Dams and broken down/abused sluice gates. To get energy flowing again, we may need to break some dams in our life. What is impeding our energy flows? What keeps us on the couch? Paint that idea, that concept, that mindset, as a metaphor in the shape of a dam or a boulder blocking the river's flow. Then blow it up. The only way to remove stagnant water from this bog is to replace it with fresh water and keep the river flowing. Fix the sluice gates. Remove any objects from impeding water flow.
This picture is not complete yet. I have ideas on what these sluice gates actually are supposed to represent but I'm not settled on them yet. And there may be many other things this wetland or bog may carry that are related to the issue of whether we are being rules by Slothfulness or by Godly Work and Rest. I expect to do Part 4 in the next few days. Part 4 will cover the issues of Wrath vs Severe Mercy. I will be addressing revenge, bitterness, and ungodly anger, vs doing something harsh knowing that the action will save the person in the end. It's going to be a good one.
Tuesday, December 3, 2013
The Terrain of Lust vs Intimacy
This is Part 2 of my series on the Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins. My last post covered the terrain on which the battle between Pride and Humility take place. This post will cover the terrain on which the battle between Lust and Intimacy will take place. To remind you, everything I describe is meant to be a metaphor of how it actually takes place and what I describe in this post is far from being complete. This is just to get some creative juices flowing so either someone could run with it or I could return later and run with it.
The first thing to remember is that the land is a metaphor of the body. The land is us and how we act, how we live our lives, is determined by who rules it. So like the region where Pride or Humility would fight, so it is with Lust vs Intimacy and who rules it will determine how the land appears. Lust and Intimacy is a very unique situation because of the nature of the two. It is well known that when we sin, we sin against God, but when we sin sexually, we sin against ourselves. And nothing illustrates this better than a cave-like system. If you have a forest and it burns down, it will regrow. However, if you mine into the earth, it leaves a permanent scar. Even if you fill it back in, it will not be the same again, ever. So this gives us the best metaphorical picture of how Lust and Intimacy fight in our lives.
Lust is rather easy to picture. It is often a strong desire for sexual pleasure and rarely is it in an appropriate manner. Intimacy is a little harder to picture. So let me describe it this way. You have a natural cave in the land, and the further you go into the cave, the safer you feel. Think of being in a public place, verses being in your home, verses being in your bedroom. In public, you tend to have a higher guard and you are watchful of people that you do not know or trust. In your home, you don't bring people in that you do not already trust. But the deepest place of that intimacy is the bedroom. You could be stark naked in your bedroom and you won't care. And the only ones you would allow to see you in that position are the ones you share the deepest intimacy with. There should only be two people who hold this position: God himself and your married spouse (emphasis on waiting until the marriage is consummated rather than before the alter). Intimacy is being in a safe place where you can share your deepest secrets, your deepest desires. It is where you can vent and you don't have to fear about it being made public. Everyone has a place of intimacy, the deepest part of your cave where you feel the most secure.
As you go further into your cave, you have a security system that sets off bells and whistles if someone goes too far in with you. A wise person will have such a system set up and will know when someone is treading on ground without permission. But a foolish person will either ignore this system or disable it. Some friends can only go part way into the cave. The closer friends can get deeper into the cave but not into the inner most chambers. Your family can get to certain layers depending on the relationship. But your spouse should be the only one into the deepest part of the cave where you are able to experience the deepest level of intimacy. Here, is where your deepest part of the cave joins with your spouse's deepest part of the cave. And this is the metaphor of "two becoming one flesh".
However, that is Intimacy. Lust is a corruption of this. It is easily confused with love. Lust has two ways in. One is by forcing or seeking to obtain the deepest part of the cave of another. It also allows others into that deepest part of the cave when said person(s) should not be there. Men tend to do the former and women tend to do the latter, but it is not uncommon to see it reversed today. Typically, what happens is when we seek the intimacy of those we should not be intimate with, we will dig ourselves a new part of the cave to make space for that person.
And here is the killer. Proverbs warns of the prostitute who lures in the young man to rob him of his innocence. This is the Lust that seeks to rule over us. Lust will use another person's innermost cave to join with yours. However, the King designed your caves to be only joined by the spouse he had in mind for you. Lust cannot have access to that part of the cave. So what Lust will do is dig a new tunnel to connect to you. But you have the choice of whether to allow such tunneling to take place in your cave. When such digging takes place, you get warnings and you have the ability to stop it right then and there. But if you allow the digging to continue, your cave will be joined with another's cave that should not be joined. And this will leave a permanent scar in your land. But it gets worse, Lust doesn't stop there. Lust seeks to pull you into it's inner most cave and chain you to it. It will give you a leash and it will allow you to return to your inner most chambers with your spouse (if you are married) but it will pull at that chain at will and drag you back. And while you are chained to Lust's chambers, Lust will go into your cave and make its home there. It will strive to violate your inner most chamber so that your spouse will one day never return. It will invite its buddies of Pride, Envy, Gluttony, and Wrath to also rule over you. Lust will dig deeper and deeper, never being satisfied like Gluttony and it will hit the fires of Wrath until your intimate cave is demolished. Those terrains will be described in more detail later. And while your cave is being destroyed, you remain bound to Lust's control as it seeks to dig deeper and deeper until the weight of the earth above can no longer support itself and sends it crashing down.
But when Intimacy rules your caves, you can force Lust out. However, even if Lust did rule your life and now Intimacy does now, the damage that Lust did will not revert back to its original state. It will always be scared. Even if you drive Lust back into its own cave and fill the tunnel Lust carved in with dirt, it will not be as solid as it was before Lust started digging. And once Lust gets in the first time, it will strive to keep coming back. But our King is ever grateful and he can restore what Lust has stolen from us. The metaphor to describe Lust is actually describing another metaphor of a bigger picture. This cave describes how Lust or Intimacy will rule our lives. But Lust/Intimacy with others/our spouse, is itself another picture or a metaphor of the relationship we have with Jesus Christ. Sin is the Lust that imprisons us and seek to destroy our cave that was meant to only be occupied by ourselves and Christ. But Christ came to restore us. And we will carry the scars that Lust delivers to us until the day we die and Christ resurrects us anew. But his patches that will carry us through until that time will suffice and as long as we rely on his security system and only open ourselves to HIM and his desires, we will never answer the door when Lust comes knocking.
Next post, I will cover the Terrain on which Slothfulness vs Rest will take place.
The first thing to remember is that the land is a metaphor of the body. The land is us and how we act, how we live our lives, is determined by who rules it. So like the region where Pride or Humility would fight, so it is with Lust vs Intimacy and who rules it will determine how the land appears. Lust and Intimacy is a very unique situation because of the nature of the two. It is well known that when we sin, we sin against God, but when we sin sexually, we sin against ourselves. And nothing illustrates this better than a cave-like system. If you have a forest and it burns down, it will regrow. However, if you mine into the earth, it leaves a permanent scar. Even if you fill it back in, it will not be the same again, ever. So this gives us the best metaphorical picture of how Lust and Intimacy fight in our lives.
Lust is rather easy to picture. It is often a strong desire for sexual pleasure and rarely is it in an appropriate manner. Intimacy is a little harder to picture. So let me describe it this way. You have a natural cave in the land, and the further you go into the cave, the safer you feel. Think of being in a public place, verses being in your home, verses being in your bedroom. In public, you tend to have a higher guard and you are watchful of people that you do not know or trust. In your home, you don't bring people in that you do not already trust. But the deepest place of that intimacy is the bedroom. You could be stark naked in your bedroom and you won't care. And the only ones you would allow to see you in that position are the ones you share the deepest intimacy with. There should only be two people who hold this position: God himself and your married spouse (emphasis on waiting until the marriage is consummated rather than before the alter). Intimacy is being in a safe place where you can share your deepest secrets, your deepest desires. It is where you can vent and you don't have to fear about it being made public. Everyone has a place of intimacy, the deepest part of your cave where you feel the most secure.
As you go further into your cave, you have a security system that sets off bells and whistles if someone goes too far in with you. A wise person will have such a system set up and will know when someone is treading on ground without permission. But a foolish person will either ignore this system or disable it. Some friends can only go part way into the cave. The closer friends can get deeper into the cave but not into the inner most chambers. Your family can get to certain layers depending on the relationship. But your spouse should be the only one into the deepest part of the cave where you are able to experience the deepest level of intimacy. Here, is where your deepest part of the cave joins with your spouse's deepest part of the cave. And this is the metaphor of "two becoming one flesh".
However, that is Intimacy. Lust is a corruption of this. It is easily confused with love. Lust has two ways in. One is by forcing or seeking to obtain the deepest part of the cave of another. It also allows others into that deepest part of the cave when said person(s) should not be there. Men tend to do the former and women tend to do the latter, but it is not uncommon to see it reversed today. Typically, what happens is when we seek the intimacy of those we should not be intimate with, we will dig ourselves a new part of the cave to make space for that person.
And here is the killer. Proverbs warns of the prostitute who lures in the young man to rob him of his innocence. This is the Lust that seeks to rule over us. Lust will use another person's innermost cave to join with yours. However, the King designed your caves to be only joined by the spouse he had in mind for you. Lust cannot have access to that part of the cave. So what Lust will do is dig a new tunnel to connect to you. But you have the choice of whether to allow such tunneling to take place in your cave. When such digging takes place, you get warnings and you have the ability to stop it right then and there. But if you allow the digging to continue, your cave will be joined with another's cave that should not be joined. And this will leave a permanent scar in your land. But it gets worse, Lust doesn't stop there. Lust seeks to pull you into it's inner most cave and chain you to it. It will give you a leash and it will allow you to return to your inner most chambers with your spouse (if you are married) but it will pull at that chain at will and drag you back. And while you are chained to Lust's chambers, Lust will go into your cave and make its home there. It will strive to violate your inner most chamber so that your spouse will one day never return. It will invite its buddies of Pride, Envy, Gluttony, and Wrath to also rule over you. Lust will dig deeper and deeper, never being satisfied like Gluttony and it will hit the fires of Wrath until your intimate cave is demolished. Those terrains will be described in more detail later. And while your cave is being destroyed, you remain bound to Lust's control as it seeks to dig deeper and deeper until the weight of the earth above can no longer support itself and sends it crashing down.
But when Intimacy rules your caves, you can force Lust out. However, even if Lust did rule your life and now Intimacy does now, the damage that Lust did will not revert back to its original state. It will always be scared. Even if you drive Lust back into its own cave and fill the tunnel Lust carved in with dirt, it will not be as solid as it was before Lust started digging. And once Lust gets in the first time, it will strive to keep coming back. But our King is ever grateful and he can restore what Lust has stolen from us. The metaphor to describe Lust is actually describing another metaphor of a bigger picture. This cave describes how Lust or Intimacy will rule our lives. But Lust/Intimacy with others/our spouse, is itself another picture or a metaphor of the relationship we have with Jesus Christ. Sin is the Lust that imprisons us and seek to destroy our cave that was meant to only be occupied by ourselves and Christ. But Christ came to restore us. And we will carry the scars that Lust delivers to us until the day we die and Christ resurrects us anew. But his patches that will carry us through until that time will suffice and as long as we rely on his security system and only open ourselves to HIM and his desires, we will never answer the door when Lust comes knocking.
Next post, I will cover the Terrain on which Slothfulness vs Rest will take place.
Saturday, November 30, 2013
The Terrain of Pride Verses Humility
In my last blog post, I talked about the Seven Deadly Sins and how a friend of mine and I (among a few others) are developing a game that helps us deal with our problems before our problems deal with us. As I mentioned here "Catharsis Hall" is a game (because it is interactive) that addresses our problems and gives us a tool to face them through the art of metaphor. How do you combat against things like pride, anger, jealousy lust, laziness, etc, when you can't see it, or engage it. One way to do that is to use a metaphor to personify that issue, use techniques to defeat that metaphor, and you will find in the process you will find you deal with your real problem as a result. So what I have worked on is to lay out the battlefield, the setting, of where these battles can take place. And my friend and I discussed a variety of terrains that would reflect not only the issue of what we want to face, but also what that terrain would look like when occupied by the right issue.
So in this post, I am going to be talking about the Deadly Sin of Pride. Now, all I have now is the terrain. Where the battles against Pride take place. Remember that everything in this description is metaphorical. It is meant to be a description, an allegory, of the real issues. The land itself represents our body. And how the land shows itself depends on who occupies the land. In this case, we are dealing with either Pride or Humility. Now Pride comes in two extremes. Boastful arrogance, like you are the king of the mountain. Or shame where instead of thinking you are on the highest mountain, you think you are in the lowest valley. Both Pride and Shame are self-focused. Humility however is different than Shame. Humility is knowing who and where you actually are, knowing what your skills and limitations are, and giving honor where it is due. Humility edifies and is not about giving glory to self. Humility recognizes the gifts God has given you, but also recognizes where those gifts came from. And humility seeks to use those gifts for building up and edifying others.
So we need some sort of terrain that would display both these features if the land was rules by someone who ruled with Pride/Shame or Humility. And right now, we have a mountainous terrain with loads of resources. One of the things about this dichotomy is Pride has many ways in but very few ways out. Humility has few ways in, but many ways out. So how the terrain will operate is determined by who rules it. And a mountainous terrain can do this. An arrogant person will seek to own the mountaintop but due to the poor leadership and poor management of resources, the arrogant person will have a difficultly getting down, let alone wanting to. A shameful person will stumble into a deep ravine or a canyon and though they may want to get out, they often can't. But often times, someone who is entrapped by Shame won't want to leave. These ravines and canyons, though they provide few ways out, often have decent resources so one can actually survive in them.
Pride be it in the form of arrogance or shame will build a city and seek to hoard any resource it can to feed itself. It will seek to block others from getting those resources as well. This is related to gluttony but that aspect will be for when I discuss gluttony. Pride will build a city and consume the resources where it stands. A forest can burn down and regrow, but it cannot regrow if a city is there. A humble person will build with minimal effect on the resources around them. A humble person will build so that the resources around him/her can be set up and used for the benefit of others. A proud person will set up all resources to serve self. A shameful person will just suck up the resources.
One other thing that will be in the center of this terrain. It could be at mountain top or it could be in the center of the town. There will be an alter in the territory. This alter will offer and receive crowns or medals. The things we do, the tasks we accomplish. The desires we seek to be and think we are. This alter will give us those crowns. But the alter will also receive these crowns. A proud or shameful person will seek either a crown of glory or a crown of shame. A humble person will lay the crown down and offer it to where it rightfully belongs.
There is so much more I can dig into for the territory of Pride vs Humility but this is just a 'on-the-surface' sketch. This territory will blend with the territories of the other six and that is for another post. But remember that everything in this terrain is a metaphor for something real in our lives. I have yet to identify what all of it is and what it represents but this is a solid starting point. With these posts I am just laying down the foundation and over time, I plan to dig a lot deeper into this stuff. I still need to determine who would inhabit this terrain on both the pride and humility occupation and how battles would be fought. But that must wait for another time. My next post will hit the question of Lust vs Intimacy. Much to do on that one and the others.
So in this post, I am going to be talking about the Deadly Sin of Pride. Now, all I have now is the terrain. Where the battles against Pride take place. Remember that everything in this description is metaphorical. It is meant to be a description, an allegory, of the real issues. The land itself represents our body. And how the land shows itself depends on who occupies the land. In this case, we are dealing with either Pride or Humility. Now Pride comes in two extremes. Boastful arrogance, like you are the king of the mountain. Or shame where instead of thinking you are on the highest mountain, you think you are in the lowest valley. Both Pride and Shame are self-focused. Humility however is different than Shame. Humility is knowing who and where you actually are, knowing what your skills and limitations are, and giving honor where it is due. Humility edifies and is not about giving glory to self. Humility recognizes the gifts God has given you, but also recognizes where those gifts came from. And humility seeks to use those gifts for building up and edifying others.
So we need some sort of terrain that would display both these features if the land was rules by someone who ruled with Pride/Shame or Humility. And right now, we have a mountainous terrain with loads of resources. One of the things about this dichotomy is Pride has many ways in but very few ways out. Humility has few ways in, but many ways out. So how the terrain will operate is determined by who rules it. And a mountainous terrain can do this. An arrogant person will seek to own the mountaintop but due to the poor leadership and poor management of resources, the arrogant person will have a difficultly getting down, let alone wanting to. A shameful person will stumble into a deep ravine or a canyon and though they may want to get out, they often can't. But often times, someone who is entrapped by Shame won't want to leave. These ravines and canyons, though they provide few ways out, often have decent resources so one can actually survive in them.
Pride be it in the form of arrogance or shame will build a city and seek to hoard any resource it can to feed itself. It will seek to block others from getting those resources as well. This is related to gluttony but that aspect will be for when I discuss gluttony. Pride will build a city and consume the resources where it stands. A forest can burn down and regrow, but it cannot regrow if a city is there. A humble person will build with minimal effect on the resources around them. A humble person will build so that the resources around him/her can be set up and used for the benefit of others. A proud person will set up all resources to serve self. A shameful person will just suck up the resources.
One other thing that will be in the center of this terrain. It could be at mountain top or it could be in the center of the town. There will be an alter in the territory. This alter will offer and receive crowns or medals. The things we do, the tasks we accomplish. The desires we seek to be and think we are. This alter will give us those crowns. But the alter will also receive these crowns. A proud or shameful person will seek either a crown of glory or a crown of shame. A humble person will lay the crown down and offer it to where it rightfully belongs.
There is so much more I can dig into for the territory of Pride vs Humility but this is just a 'on-the-surface' sketch. This territory will blend with the territories of the other six and that is for another post. But remember that everything in this terrain is a metaphor for something real in our lives. I have yet to identify what all of it is and what it represents but this is a solid starting point. With these posts I am just laying down the foundation and over time, I plan to dig a lot deeper into this stuff. I still need to determine who would inhabit this terrain on both the pride and humility occupation and how battles would be fought. But that must wait for another time. My next post will hit the question of Lust vs Intimacy. Much to do on that one and the others.
Thursday, November 28, 2013
The Terrain of the Seven Deadly Sins
Fellowship with a friend can at times change the course of one's life. And I believe that this may have happened with me this week. I have been out of town for Thanksgiving week in Colorado to visit family and friends and I just finished spending 2 1/2 days with a fellow Christian writer friend. From the moment I met him, I knew there was something about him that would alter my life and my perspective on things. And that does not come close to describing it. We met 1 1/2 years ago at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference and again at the conference this year and God has kindled a friendship that is taking me deeper to a new level of faith and a walk with Christ.
One thing that my friend has been working on for the last few years is based on the answer to one question: "What if there was some sort of game that would help you take care of your problems before your problems dealt with you?" As he prayed about that, God answered the questions of "Oh, that is interesting. Can I play?" And this was the birth of the development of "Catharsis Hall". Catharsis Hall is based on a role playing theme similar to dungeons and dragons but very different. Every aspect of the game is an allegory to something that we deal with and face in our every day Christian walk. And those who have started to play it have found their lives completely transformed in a way never imaginable prior. My friend grew up in the church and he knows Christian doctrine and principles very well. But in the development of this game, he has learned more about Christianity in just one year's span than he has in his entire life prior. In what I have learned of the game, I can see how.
In the two times at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference I have been there, I have heard a lot about this game. I can say I understood what this type of game could do for a person struggling with issues like sin, lust, hatred, addictions, depression, etc. And today (Thanksgiving Day), I got a chance to meet someone who has experienced this game firsthand and he had to deal with an issue of anger against someone who had BADLY wronged him. And through this game, he has dealt with that problem. I could see this having a role. I also saw the magnitude of this game. It is like building Middle Earth. It is HUGE. And my friend at the conference this year asked for help. I wanted to help, but I had no idea how. I had no idea how to remotely approach trying to help figure this thing out. Until this week.
My specialty is spiritual warfare and one major aspect about this game is going to battle against the issues in your life. Both my friend and I have discovered Sun-Tzu's "The Art of War". It is not just "we can use this in our spiritual lives". It is actually we must learn how it has been used on us. One thing Sun-Tzu teaches that is so important that he devotes 2 of his 13 chapters on it: the terrain. The physical layout and the political/military status of the terrain. And since my strength is the battle side of things, my friend and I started talking about how we can set up the terrain for this game. He had the armies, who is good, who is bad. But they had no battlefield to fight on. And that is where I come in. This is when I "got it". I started to understand how this game actually works and how I can play a role in developing it.
In our discussions, we confirmed that every sin, every problem we have in our lives has a root in one of the seven deadly sins: pride, lust, wrath, envy, slothfulness, gluttony, and greed. Every issue we face as some root in one or more of these seven issues. And I cannot think of a counter example. We also discussed that the land itself is not evil. It is the occupants that make it evil. A pirate ship is evil because of the pirates in it. But clean it up, change the colors, and crew it with merchants, and while being the same ship, it is not to be feared. The same is true for terrain. And what we came up with in the two nights we had together was a battlefield, a terrain for where we would fight and engage against the Seven Deadly Sins.
But since the terrain is actually neutral in itself, we needed terrain that when occupied with the good stuff, it would reflect it. We wanted land that would reveal good purposes but when corrupted by sin, it would transform into something ugly. So we have pride. Pride can come in the form of arrogance or shame. The opposite of that is Humility and Edifying. Lust is a corruption of Intimacy. Wrath is the opposite of Severe Mercy. Envy is the Corruption of External Provision. Slothfulness is a corruption of appropriate and intentional Rest. Gluttony is a corruption of Internal Satisfaction. And Greed is often a desire of Control. It is a corruption of proper Management and a Freedom to Live. I am going to start a series where I will delve into what the terrain of what the battlefield where we would face those Seven Deadly Sins would look like. Much of this is not fully developed but I pray these next seven posts will give a good picture of this could look like.
This has blown my mind and though I will be using this to help develop my friend's game, I intend to use this exercise to develop myself AND new stories for down the road books. God is going to use Catharsis Hal in a way none of us can imagine. To play this game should scare you because it will make you face yourself, but the reward is beyond worth it. There are only two types of people who will address this game. The first will hear about it and they will run because they fear the process the game will force you to take. The other type are those that will see the end result and they will DARE to enter it. This is not a game you play. It is a game that plays you because you are playing with God. And at this time, I am ready to dive in and explore this game for the first time. I ask those willing and those brave enough to enter this journey with me. It is a real call to arms and there is SO much that is in common with Catharsis Hall and my own books that it is rather startling. And I pray that those reading this blog will catch on to the vision here and if nothing else, help me develop these terrains. Once I have the terrain, I need to develop armies for both sides that would be a reflection of the type of terrain we are dealing with. Then it is on to how the battles will be fought. And if we can do the battle through the metaphor of the game, we will in effect be battling the problems the elements of the game represent and our life will be transformed.
One thing that my friend has been working on for the last few years is based on the answer to one question: "What if there was some sort of game that would help you take care of your problems before your problems dealt with you?" As he prayed about that, God answered the questions of "Oh, that is interesting. Can I play?" And this was the birth of the development of "Catharsis Hall". Catharsis Hall is based on a role playing theme similar to dungeons and dragons but very different. Every aspect of the game is an allegory to something that we deal with and face in our every day Christian walk. And those who have started to play it have found their lives completely transformed in a way never imaginable prior. My friend grew up in the church and he knows Christian doctrine and principles very well. But in the development of this game, he has learned more about Christianity in just one year's span than he has in his entire life prior. In what I have learned of the game, I can see how.
In the two times at the Colorado Christian Writer's Conference I have been there, I have heard a lot about this game. I can say I understood what this type of game could do for a person struggling with issues like sin, lust, hatred, addictions, depression, etc. And today (Thanksgiving Day), I got a chance to meet someone who has experienced this game firsthand and he had to deal with an issue of anger against someone who had BADLY wronged him. And through this game, he has dealt with that problem. I could see this having a role. I also saw the magnitude of this game. It is like building Middle Earth. It is HUGE. And my friend at the conference this year asked for help. I wanted to help, but I had no idea how. I had no idea how to remotely approach trying to help figure this thing out. Until this week.
My specialty is spiritual warfare and one major aspect about this game is going to battle against the issues in your life. Both my friend and I have discovered Sun-Tzu's "The Art of War". It is not just "we can use this in our spiritual lives". It is actually we must learn how it has been used on us. One thing Sun-Tzu teaches that is so important that he devotes 2 of his 13 chapters on it: the terrain. The physical layout and the political/military status of the terrain. And since my strength is the battle side of things, my friend and I started talking about how we can set up the terrain for this game. He had the armies, who is good, who is bad. But they had no battlefield to fight on. And that is where I come in. This is when I "got it". I started to understand how this game actually works and how I can play a role in developing it.
In our discussions, we confirmed that every sin, every problem we have in our lives has a root in one of the seven deadly sins: pride, lust, wrath, envy, slothfulness, gluttony, and greed. Every issue we face as some root in one or more of these seven issues. And I cannot think of a counter example. We also discussed that the land itself is not evil. It is the occupants that make it evil. A pirate ship is evil because of the pirates in it. But clean it up, change the colors, and crew it with merchants, and while being the same ship, it is not to be feared. The same is true for terrain. And what we came up with in the two nights we had together was a battlefield, a terrain for where we would fight and engage against the Seven Deadly Sins.
But since the terrain is actually neutral in itself, we needed terrain that when occupied with the good stuff, it would reflect it. We wanted land that would reveal good purposes but when corrupted by sin, it would transform into something ugly. So we have pride. Pride can come in the form of arrogance or shame. The opposite of that is Humility and Edifying. Lust is a corruption of Intimacy. Wrath is the opposite of Severe Mercy. Envy is the Corruption of External Provision. Slothfulness is a corruption of appropriate and intentional Rest. Gluttony is a corruption of Internal Satisfaction. And Greed is often a desire of Control. It is a corruption of proper Management and a Freedom to Live. I am going to start a series where I will delve into what the terrain of what the battlefield where we would face those Seven Deadly Sins would look like. Much of this is not fully developed but I pray these next seven posts will give a good picture of this could look like.
This has blown my mind and though I will be using this to help develop my friend's game, I intend to use this exercise to develop myself AND new stories for down the road books. God is going to use Catharsis Hal in a way none of us can imagine. To play this game should scare you because it will make you face yourself, but the reward is beyond worth it. There are only two types of people who will address this game. The first will hear about it and they will run because they fear the process the game will force you to take. The other type are those that will see the end result and they will DARE to enter it. This is not a game you play. It is a game that plays you because you are playing with God. And at this time, I am ready to dive in and explore this game for the first time. I ask those willing and those brave enough to enter this journey with me. It is a real call to arms and there is SO much that is in common with Catharsis Hall and my own books that it is rather startling. And I pray that those reading this blog will catch on to the vision here and if nothing else, help me develop these terrains. Once I have the terrain, I need to develop armies for both sides that would be a reflection of the type of terrain we are dealing with. Then it is on to how the battles will be fought. And if we can do the battle through the metaphor of the game, we will in effect be battling the problems the elements of the game represent and our life will be transformed.
Sunday, November 17, 2013
The Action of Faith
Very interesting this morning as I listened to a sermon from Eric Ludy he preached last week and as I sat in the sermon at my church this morning. Both sermons were on the same subject: The Action of Faith. First we need to define what faith is. Faith is frequently described as the well known phrase "blind faith", that is belief without reason or without evidence. But this is not faith at all. If you look at every other faith besides atheism, you will find faith is defined by a very different standard. And that standard is pretty clear in Hebrews 11:1.
"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."
Faith is not just some blind belief. It is KNOWING that something you don't not have manifest right now will take place. It is interesting how the atheist think faith is blind without evidence and claim that science has or will have all the answers. Yet very few fields demonstrate the carrying out of faith better than science. Every time a science experiment is carried faith is exercised. How? Every time an experiment is carried out, the scientists does not know that the laws of science are actually going to hold up. They expect they will because they have seen it take place over and over and over again. But when it comes to the moment of the experiment, they cannot know that they will. It a future event and they cannot know it. Expecting it to happen is not the same as knowing it will.
But faith goes beyond just expecting something to happen. It means acting on it. If I want to sky dive, I have to know about the parachute. If I don't know about the parachute, I won't think about sky diving. But once I know about the parachute, I can study it. I can watch it in action. I can believe it will hold me if I were to jump out of the plane. But knowledge and belief that it will work doesn't save me when I jump from the plane. I have to actually take the parachute and put it on. I can't just have it in my possession, I have to wear it. And I have to get on the plane.
But faith is still more than that. Faith cannot just be possessed. It MUST have action. If I have a parachute on my back, it does me absolutely no good if I do not use it. If I have a parachute and I jump, the parachute is useless if I don't pull the string. The ultimate test of faith in the parachute is in the jump. When you jump you are 100% undeniably committed. And that is where faith is carried out. It is when you can do nothing but rely on that which you have faith. Faith is exercised every time you sit on a chair and you put your weight on it. There is no going back when your weight is placed on the chair. When you skydive, the moment of truth is in the jump from the plane. You better have the certainty of things hoped for when you jump. And when you pull the string of the chute, you take life-saving action that is rooted in your faith in the parachute.
And this is how the Christian walk is based. Because of sin, we are in a doomed plane. It is going to crash and we must jump before it does. But what are we placing our faith in? What action are we going to take to demonstrate it? Are we going to deny our sin and stay on the plane? Are we going to jump? And what is our parachute? Religion? That is like tying a weight to our neck and jumping. Jesus said he was the only way unto salvation. Jesus Christ is the only parachute that will hold. He is the only one whose strings cannot be broken. And we do not accept this blindly. We have tried to see if Jesus is good and if he is true to his word. And he has never failed to hold to his word. Jesus cannot lie. He will never back off his promises and when we put Jesus on and pull the string of the parachute he has provided, we will be saved.
"Now Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things unseen."
Faith is not just some blind belief. It is KNOWING that something you don't not have manifest right now will take place. It is interesting how the atheist think faith is blind without evidence and claim that science has or will have all the answers. Yet very few fields demonstrate the carrying out of faith better than science. Every time a science experiment is carried faith is exercised. How? Every time an experiment is carried out, the scientists does not know that the laws of science are actually going to hold up. They expect they will because they have seen it take place over and over and over again. But when it comes to the moment of the experiment, they cannot know that they will. It a future event and they cannot know it. Expecting it to happen is not the same as knowing it will.
But faith goes beyond just expecting something to happen. It means acting on it. If I want to sky dive, I have to know about the parachute. If I don't know about the parachute, I won't think about sky diving. But once I know about the parachute, I can study it. I can watch it in action. I can believe it will hold me if I were to jump out of the plane. But knowledge and belief that it will work doesn't save me when I jump from the plane. I have to actually take the parachute and put it on. I can't just have it in my possession, I have to wear it. And I have to get on the plane.
But faith is still more than that. Faith cannot just be possessed. It MUST have action. If I have a parachute on my back, it does me absolutely no good if I do not use it. If I have a parachute and I jump, the parachute is useless if I don't pull the string. The ultimate test of faith in the parachute is in the jump. When you jump you are 100% undeniably committed. And that is where faith is carried out. It is when you can do nothing but rely on that which you have faith. Faith is exercised every time you sit on a chair and you put your weight on it. There is no going back when your weight is placed on the chair. When you skydive, the moment of truth is in the jump from the plane. You better have the certainty of things hoped for when you jump. And when you pull the string of the chute, you take life-saving action that is rooted in your faith in the parachute.
And this is how the Christian walk is based. Because of sin, we are in a doomed plane. It is going to crash and we must jump before it does. But what are we placing our faith in? What action are we going to take to demonstrate it? Are we going to deny our sin and stay on the plane? Are we going to jump? And what is our parachute? Religion? That is like tying a weight to our neck and jumping. Jesus said he was the only way unto salvation. Jesus Christ is the only parachute that will hold. He is the only one whose strings cannot be broken. And we do not accept this blindly. We have tried to see if Jesus is good and if he is true to his word. And he has never failed to hold to his word. Jesus cannot lie. He will never back off his promises and when we put Jesus on and pull the string of the parachute he has provided, we will be saved.
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