St Basil tells us what evil really is today in A Year with the Church Fathers.
He tells us to stop trying to blame our sin on anything outside of ourselves. That evil isn't something "out there". It isn't a tangible thing. There is no such thing as pure evil. Evil is only a distortion of what we are supposed to be inside. It is found inside of us, not "out there".
This is a pretty profound truth, and it might come as a surprise. Horror movies try to make us believe that there is an evil "force" out there that makes us do bad things. And we know that there ARE demons. That there are principalities and powers. That Satan is real. But those are also beings whose wills have been corrupted. Evil isn't a separate thing. It's only found inside of us created beings, and only when we allow it to be.
Fortunately, we don't have to allow it to be. All of us have sin in our lives. No one is perfect. So we all have a choice to make. Let sin take over and run crazy in our lives, destroying everything... or repent of our sins on a regular basis, keep turning from them the way that you keep turning from wrong answers when working math problems... and learn to live the way He is calling us to. Without sin, free to love.
God, please teach us to take responsibility for our sin - and learn to master it.
3 comments:
Very good post. One thing I learned some years back when learning to heal from abuse was there was a need for accountability for my own actions and learned to take responsibility for my own actions. I attended a group called Life's Healing Choices and one thing they taught us to do was in our journaling write about what was done to us and then write what we did without blaming anyone else. Yes bad things happen to us but we are responsible for our actions.
Yes the Lord is merciful when He corrects us. Am so grateful for His mercy and grace He has provided to me in those area of darkness He has brought to Light.
We are each accountable for our own actions. It's makes me feel better to be able to blame someone or something else for my bad behavior. Did you touch on why we feel the need to blame?
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