When I think of myself at my worst, words like complacent, grouchy, inconsiderate and coarse come to mind. Perhaps you haven't seen that in me, trust me it's there. Perhaps you have seen it in me, well it used to be much worse!
On a default setting I remain all these things but mercifully I exhibit these tendencies less and less. The decline of these bad traits is necessary and welcome but I doubt I shall ever see their demise. There is little to be gained however by eternally beating myself up over it.
The danger is that we can spend so much time trying-not-to-be-bad, trying to rectify our behavioural flaws, that we become fearful, conceited and humourless shells rather than getting on with the business of bringing life and light.
In Romans 6 Paul tells us not to be "slaves to sin", he doesn't then ask us to become "slaves to not sinning" he says "be slaves to righteousness" (v18). There's a distinction worth pondering there.
Romans 12, which feig will be looking at on Thursday talks of "overcoming evil with good"(v21) What does this mean? It means we don't overcome our hang ups by fixating on them.
Overcoming negative or abusive use of language for example, is not achieved by writing a list of all the words one mustn't use! It's achieved by practicing complimenting, encouragement, forgiveness and thankfulness.
After a while you notice you're not as - insert your own failing here - as you were. This is not because you spent your best efforts on battling your weakness but because you were occupied and invested in a better way of being instead.
dp
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we could all do with being a little gentler on ourselves. Who doesn't make mistakes? The important thing is to learn from it, let go and move on. Your right that the things we struggle with drop away when we stop putting a punishing gaze on them. And where your positive attention goes energy grows and amazing things happen.
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