Thou Shalt Not Covet

Most of us have heard the last of the Ten Commandments:  "Thou Shalt Not Covet."  The first nine commandments are generally regarded as external action commandments.  Don't murder, don't lie, etc.  But the tenth commandment is something altogether different.  "Thou shalt not covet" is about the inner being.  As we reflect on ourselves and we strive to know ourselves more, this tenth commandment is a painful one.  

In all societies across all time, all humans covet.  We may covet money, power, love, attention, success, or acceptance.  Or we may covet peace, clean air, quiet kids, and fresh flowers.  When we do not have something, and we want it badly, we covet that object.

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Not a Sunday Problem

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Recently I was grumbling about the quality of a sermon at Church.  I didn't think it was deep enough ... I didn't care for the pithy commentary ... I didn't think it was a good use of my hour I suppose.  It struck me that, perhaps the Church was not the one for me ... then it struck me that perhaps I was not the right one for that Church!

Then I realized that I was becoming trapped in one of the devil's classic devices.  As I grumbled about my Sunday experience, I was really exposing how I drifted in my Monday through Saturday relationship with God.  I had drifted from reading the Bible, praying to God, and contemplating His grace.  I had moved work ahead of my relationship with God, and had begun to slide back towards the anxieties and frustrations that come from relying on self-actions and efforts.  

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The End

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I live in the Washington, D.C. area.  In this area there are many professionals doing all sorts of seemingly important things.  The world is impacted from this area, both positively and negatively.  The days are long and the pace is fast.  It is very easy to be on the hamster wheel and forget that there is life beyond that wheel.  

As humans, we are generally in some sort of fast lane, trying to achieve that next thing.  We focus very much on ourselves, what we want, who we want to know, and how we want to be perceived by others.  Day by day, moments seem larger than life, interactions seem critical, and decisions seem consequential.  And then something jolts us off of that hamster wheel for just long enough to consider the big picture.  Sometimes it is a loss of a job, the loss of a lifestyle, or the death of someone close.  We begin to ponder that bigger picture, and suddenly the day to day rat-race seems so small and inconsequential.

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Don't Just Blame TV

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Certainly there are a lot of challenging things that bombard our brains and souls each day.  We are told we are too fat, too thin, too rich, too poor, not cool, too cool, etc.  Virtually every form of media tells us that we are inadequate in some way.  Whether it is TV, movies, or the internet, we are being offered chances to obtain happiness in the form of weight loss, wealth, possessions, or friends.  No wonder there is so much anxiety and frustration in the world.

However, this anxiety and frustration not only plagues people that are non-Christian, it plagues Christians as well.  So, how do we reconcile this?  The reality is that as humans, we are innately vulnerable to chasing the wrong things down the wrong paths.  We are almost supremely centered on ourselves and our desires, rather than on the needs of others.  The siren songs from TV, movies, and the internet are so appealing not because they are great, but because of our universal human nature.

Gravity

Everyone understands gravity...our feet are on the ground, we don't fly off into space.  I was thinking about we humans and the way that we think.  We are so focused on ourselves and what impacts us at the moment.  We are also so focused on trying to explain everything.  If we can't explain it, then it must not be possible.  It is as if there is a gravity that directly impacts our thoughts and thought patterns.  The result of this thought gravity is that we become inward focused and myopic to the point of not being able to contemplate the big picture.

As we try to know our current selves, by definition we need to be focusing a bit inward.  But, to know our current selves, we need to also see the big picture.  Just as the rocket boosters violently thrust the rocket beyond the forces of gravity, so too do we need a radical boost to get us well beyond the reaches of our everyday nearsightedness.  When we break out of our limited thought patterns, we are then ready to consider all of the big picture...which ultimately will lead us back to a true understanding of ourselves.

We Could All Use a Little Rest

Knowing yourself includes knowing how you feel physically and emotionally.  As we grow older, and hopefully wiser, we get better at detecting how we are feeling in general.  Many of us have long bouts of weariness.  In fact, much of society seems to be weary.  We sometimes say we are just tired, but do you notice that some folks seem to be always tired. Perhaps what we face is not a physical weariness, but an emotional weariness.

Rest can take the form of sleep or relaxation, but many of the emotional burdens that we carry stem from our pursuits of happiness in all of the wrong places.  When our ultimate goal is a better career we gain stress and anxiety.  When our ultimate goal is raising the best kids we can feel guilty for our parenting past mistakes.  When our ultimate goal is to better our neighbors, we can develop resentment and insecurity.  In the end, these pursuits can yield feelings such as stress, anxiety, guilt, resentment, and insecurity ... which all amount to a ton of emotional burden.

Our shelves are full of books telling us to run away from these problems.  Take a vacation ... meditate ... don't think about it ... don't deal with it.  We are ready to take Chicken Soup for the Soul and stare at the ocean, but are we ready to seek out a better path altogether?  I don't know about you, but I am not interested in running away from my burdens for a week, only to come back and get those same burdens reapplied.  I'm not interested in meditating on flowers and clouds for an hour, just to awake from my slumber and re-enter my cold reality of a life.  What I want is a whole new path.  I want to walk through my life without the emotional burdens that cause so much weariness.  I want to understand how I can get there and who can help me.

If you find yourself weary from the burdens of chasing power, money, comforts, successes, and acceptance from others; know that those burdens can be gone by changing your path.  If you are a regular churchgoer but have these burdens weighing you down, it is time to walk backwards to the split in the road, and then take the other path towards a true Christianity. We are designed to be something altogether different than humans burdened by emotional strain.  Understanding how you are designed, what you were designed to become, and how you can get there is exactly what we cover in the Accept Yourself content.

“ I have said these things to you, that in me you may have peace. In the world you will have tribulation. But take heart; I have overcome the world.”
— John 16:33
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Is Good Enough, Actually Good Enough?

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I was reading a book on the role of the Christian Husband and one of the things that struck me was this concept that we are "good enough" or that life is "good enough."  Many of us go through life and things are "just fine."  We have good enough jobs, good enough relationships, good enough kids, good enough friendships, and we feel good enough on the inside.  Nothing is perfect, but nothing is really awful ... things are simply "good enough".

Television is a big driver of the "good enough" mentality.  You see a guy cheat on his wife on TV and you think, "well I'm not that guy."  You see a person rob a bank on TV and you think, "well I'm not that guy either."  The fictional television people that we compare ourselves against are generally just enough of a mess for us to think, "hey, I'm pretty good."

What is Wrong with All of Us?

Sometimes it is hard not to just look around and wonder, "what is wrong with all of us?"  Try not to say it out loud!  As humans, we are deeply flawed.  At any point in time you might be facing people who are talking bad about you, working schemes against you, trying to take advantage of you, or much worse.  And, if we take an honest look in the mirror, we probably have a list of things that ... shall I say ... we would prefer were not our natural tendencies towards others.  On this later point, forget any other moral standard, if we really judged ourselves on the standards we set for others, we would fall woefully short.  But that is a whole other blog entry for another day.

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Do You Live to Get Power?

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We call the things we put as top priority in our lives, "idols".  As humans we tend to focus on four primary idols that we call, "deep idols".  Many humans seek power as the most important thing in their lives.  The person at work that wants to be the boss, no matter the cost.  The person at home, that wants to be in charge of everything, no matter the cost.  As with all deep idols, seeking power is about trying to attain that thing which you believe will make you happy.  And, as with all deep idols, seeking power to gain happiness will result in, you guessed it, no feelings of happiness.

The deep idol of power is really the ultimate in the self-reliant orientation.  As modern humans we are convinced that (1) if we can't explain something then it must not be real, (2) if we want something we simply have to try harder, (3) if life is not going well, it is our own fault.  As we seek power we are seeking the power over others to do our will.  Ultimately we either gain the power we are seeking or we do not.