The labor of self-love is a heavy one indeed. Think of yourself whether much of your sorrow has not arisen from someone speaking slightingly of you. As long as you set yourself up as as a little god to which you must be loyal there will be those who will delight to offer affront to your idol. How then can you hope to have inward peace? The heart's fierce effort to protect itself from every slight, to shield its touchy honor from the bad opinion of friend and enemy. will never let the mind have rest. -A.W. Tozer
I find myself paraphrasing "original sin" into several iterations as experiences dictate. I envision the Holy Spirit as a guide that walks beside me and patiently points out lessons as we journey along life's path. Sometimes I listen. More often than not I allow the artificial importance of the day's events cloud my mind and deafen my ears. On many occasions the message is a simple one, "This was not an issue before the fall". I find that on those occasions where I allow myself to step out of the forbearance of the present, I can see where man's choice to accept responsibility for deciding what is right and wrong can only be burdened by an unconscious ignorance of reality. We choose to believe we are right, which leads to an assumption that others must look, act and feel the same. This basic conflict describes almost all of human suffering. Imagine if an all loving God made those choices and we were not obligated by this need for importance, acceptance and "being right", whatever that means. If loving and emulating God were our life, those things would easily follow... they would just be. I would gladly give up that responsibility if given the choice.
