" ... choose you this day whom you will serve; whether the gods which your fathers served that were on the other side of the flood, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you dwell." ... Joshua 24:15
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Bitter Christians make me bonkers.
You know, how they choose to concentrate upon what went wrong, what's going wrong, what will always be wrong. How they don't even realize they're not ok.
The way they soak for hours in bathtubs filled with Self Pity Water. You know about Self Pity Water, right? It pulls you under, closes your eyes, then hypnotizes you into believing you have a right to feel sad. How can you help it? There is no other way to feel, at least, not until you hit Heaven. Only in Heaven will things get better. All God expects here? That you do your best to survive one miserable day after another.
Good grief.
If you are a Christian, today you are not helpless.
You are not destined to stay on the defensive side, the mad or sad sides, either. Nor drowning, hypnotized, beneath Self Pity Water.
"It is for freedom that Christ has set you free."
Freedom! Not hopeless-like-everybody else. Not feeling like the unsaved, clueless, angry world. But real, never-ends freedom.
Yet of course, that also means we have these freedoms:
To not seek help.
To not make attitude changes. Or health/vitamin/exercise changes.
To believe the Bible's power promises are no longer valid. At least for us.
To believe other Christians 'get it', but we never will.
Yesterday Tom and I rewatched the first two original Lord of the Rings movies and they reminded me that we are in a war. A daily battle! But the good news? "It is not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, says the Lord."
And His great Spirit of Love changes everything. Love, not bitterness, envy or self-pity. Love is spiritual warfare. Love is the greatest thing and if only we'd seek to become lovers of God!
Oh, what His Living Water will change. Day by day, from glory to glory, from strength to strength.
Making us not limpers, but rather, leapers.
Amen.
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"Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand." ... Ephesians 6:13
“Self-pity. Certainly the most destructive vice if you like, that a person can have. More than pride, which is supposedly the number one of the cardinal sins - is self pity. Self pity is the worst possible emotion anyone can have. And the most destructive. It is, to slightly paraphrase what Wilde said about hatred, and I think actually hatred's a subset of self pity and not the other way around - ' It destroys everything around it, except itself '.
Self pity will destroy relationships, it'll destroy anything that's good, it will fulfill all the prophecies it makes and leave only itself."...
...Stephen Fry
“Self pity is easily the most destructive of the non-pharmaceutical narcotics; it is addictive, gives momentary pleasure and separates the victim from reality.”
― John Gardner
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2 comments:
I like the cute bathtub picture and the glorious waterfall. Our sermons recently involve reminding us to "put on the full armor of God" before we leave the house each day. I don't know any bitter Christians, my wide circle of friends are joyful, even in hardship.
Terra--glad you liked the photos! You're fortunate you don't have bitter friends. I have a handful of friends I'm very concerned about because their bitterness and self-pity seem to worsen over the years. It's been like watching a disease course through them and it makes me sad.
Thanks for commenting! Blessings, Debra
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