I've been wondering recently what in this life is really mine. One way to answer that question would be any or all of the following: my body, my skills, my soul, my material possessions, my job, my purpose, my accomplishments, my family. And, from most people, you probably wouldn't get much disagreement over those answers since it is the traditional way that people think about this question. But the more I personally think about it, the less I see that is really mine. You could argue that all of those things I listed are gifts from God and that anything good that flows from them is also a gift from God. In some ways, I am more of a custodian or trustee than an owner. And that bugs me on some level since I want there to be things that I can call mine, just mine, that I have exclusive dominion over.
The only thing I can come up with that falls into that category is my free will or agency. That's something that, based on how God has setup the system, is mine and can't be taken away or overridden by God. But, here's the rub, I'm supposed to use that free will to make decisions that align with God's commandments such that the outcome is exactly the same as if I didn't have free will to begin in. And, if I choose to do otherwise, I'm supposed to use my free will to repent and ask for forgiveness for those sins. So, in reality, if I am faithful and choose to do what I'm supposed to do, I'm basically left with nothing that is really mine. Perhaps that's the true test: we need to consciously choose to give up everything in this life to obtain everything we might want in the next life.
Right now, I'm not racing out to do that. I'm not pleading with God to take away my sins. If anything, I want to hold onto them. I'm hoarding them. I used my free will to get my sins. They're mine, all mine. They're all I have in this world.
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3 comments:
I think your blog presents one of the great paradoxes of discipleship -- that in turning over our will to God we actually become free (Matthew 10:39). If you think about it, by sinning you are basically serving evil or the devil, and many sins involve being a slave to something. Are you ever really choosing "for yourself," or are your choices always guided by influences, and you just choose which influences you will listen to or subject ourselves to?
I agree that there are influences in either direction. So I'd still argue that the choice itself is still mine but you have a good point that the sins that flow from those choices probably aren't (just as the positive things that flow from "right" decisions are equally not "mine"). As an aside, I gave away my sins the following night (Sunday). I'm not sure if I'd say they're gone since I'm not really sure what the repentence process is supposed to look or feel like but I at least said (in prayer) that I was sorry for bad decisions I've made in the past and I'm ready to let the sins go. So, in that sense at least, they're not "mine" anymore.
Yes, we need to consciously give everything up, except I think we should do it with the hope of making it to the next life. Check out what Jesus says:
24Then said Jesus unto his disciples, If any man will come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me.
25For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.
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