I
found this meme today, which made me laugh, and caused me to look in my heart at the same time. As someone who is regularly praised for being "good" and "smart", it's easy for me to pretend that I'm not, in the eyes of the Lord, evil and retarded. But this is the most important thing to know about oneself.
It doesn't take long, really, to find my wickednesses. They occur constantly, mostly in the form of judgements of other people. I don't dwell on them, try not to act on them, usually try to forget them as quickly I can -- but these are real evils that rise up in my heart, and poo-pooing them as "not that bad" is a dangerous road to walk down. Pride is absolutely the cardinal vice with which I struggle most, and guess what fellas -- it's the worst one. I'll be battling this serpent for the entirety of my life, trying to keep it at bay so that the One Greater Than All has room to fit in my spirit.
I am one of the luckiest people to have ever lived, blessed beyond possible merit. I happen to inhabit a world that insulates me from the consequences of the darker parts of my personality. But on that day when I am "all stripped down", there will be nothing to protect me from the cruel wind of my own making.
I came across a GK Chesterton quote recently:
In one sense, and that the eternal sense, the thing is plain. The answer to the question “What is Wrong?” is, or should be, “I am wrong.” Until a man can give that answer his idealism is only a hobby."
How do I make the above quotation not simply a clever saying about original sin, and instead a genuine, truthful expression of my inner life? It's so easy to have the words, and so hard to have the spirit.