Posts Tagged: the prodigal son

“A MERELY NEGATIVE GOODNESS”

On October 2, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

Today’s blog deals with breaking bad habits.  The thesis is simple: We can’t!

I have sometimes (often?) fallen into a simple but deadly trap—trying to be good by not being bad.  It doesn’t work.  Process precedes product.

In a book entitled, Self-Knowledge and Self-Discipline: How to Know and Govern Yourself, B.W. Murin writes the following wise and helpful words:

“The oftener we choose anything the easier it is to choose it again.  The Law of habit reigns in the moral order as truly as the law of gravitation in the physical.  The most difficult things become easy in time.  It would be as difficult for a saint after long habits of virtue suddenly to fall into mortal sin, as it would for a man living for years in habits of vice suddenly to become a saint” (115).

Concerning bad habits, Murin writes, “. . . [H]abit can only be conquered by habit” (116).

“The prodigal who wakens to find himself a swineherd in a distant land cannot get back to his father’s home, however much he longs for it, save by treading step by step the road which he journeyed in leaving it” (117).

“The result of a great battle does not depend upon the moment’s struggle, but upon the discipline and training of the troops in the past.  Before a blow is struck or the first shot fired the issue of the conflict is practically decided.

The conflict, therefore, must be unceasing; the opportunities of training the will present themselves every hour” (124).

Murin goes on to note that a merely negative approach to the mind and thought-life does not work.

“There is a better way.  The positive rather than the negative way.  Let not your mind be overcome with evil, ‘but overcome evil by good.’  The emptying the mind of evil is not the first step towards filling it with good.  It is not a step in that direction at all.  If you succeeded in emptying your mind of every undesirable thought, what then?  You cannot empty it and then begin to fill it with better thoughts.  No, you must empty it of evil by filling it with good.  Nature abhors a vacuum.  You drive out darkness by filling the room with light.  If you would fill a glass (150) with water you do not first expel the air, you expel the air by pouring in water.  And in the moral life there is no intermediate state of vacuum possible in which, having driven out the evil, you begin to bring in good.  As the good enters it expels the evil” (151) (150-151).

 

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“LET’S PARTY!”

On July 24, 2018 by Dteb With 0 Comments - down to earth believer

“His son said to him, ’Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you; I no longer deserve to be called your son.’ But his father ordered his servants, ’Quickly bring the finest robe and put it on him; put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet. Take the fattened calf and slaughter it. Then let us celebrate with a feast, because this son of mine was dead, and has come to life again; he was lost, and has been found.’ Then the celebration began.” (Luke 15:21-24)

The son seems to have been expecting only bare acceptance as a hired hand (verse 17), but he received an abundantly joyous welcome—indeed, a party—as a son.  We always tend to underestimate God.  The runaway son was expecting merely enough food to keep him from starving.  Instead, he was the guest of honor at a feast.

This son, this son, who had demanded his share of the inheritance, even though his father was still alive, this son, came draggin’ his sorry butt back home, begging for mercy.

I am that son.  So are you—or daughter, as the case may be.

And what do we expect?  Mere acceptance, perhaps.  If we’re lucky.

And what do we experience?  God’s glad embrace and kisses.  Words of affirmation.  A wild party at which we are the guests of honor.

We talk a lot about the unconditional love of God, but we have no real idea.  The parable of the Father’s lavish love for his runaway son (and the stay-at-home son as well), should shove us in the direction of a better view of God’s love.  Sometimes, stories like this succeed in getting people to run, walk, or crawl in that general direction.

And then, there is the redemptive love of Jesus, as shown on the cross.

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