Count Your Troubles Over Again
Monday, May 21, 2007
I’ve received some interesting feedback via email and comments here on my earlier question from The Cure, so here’s another, sort of a follow-up, which I also spent a lot of time considering as I wrote that novel:
If you could take a pill to eliminate all your troubles—your insecurities, ailments, weaknesses and moral failings—would you still need Jesus or the Holy Spirit?
Of course Christians believe we need Jesus because everyone has something inside that drives us to sin. We are “weakened by our sinful nature” and cannot rise above our sinfulness, so only Jesus’ blood on the cross can cure us of our sin disease. And Christianity teaches that the sin disease causes all the heartache in the world, one way or another. But say there was another way, a pill to make the badness go away? Could we then bypass the whole cross and resurrection thing? Would it be a kind of “Passion Lite,” which gets results without producing all the excess weight and messy stuff?
And the Holy Spirit, as our “counselor,” spends a great deal of time training us to avoid temptations, or to overcome them. He gives us wisdom to see sins for what they are, and he fills our hearts with a desire to keep them at a distance, to live righteous, holy, sinless lives. So, after this pill has cured me of all the things in life that tempt me to sin, and after I have no more moral failings, would I need a counselor?
Some may say these are silly questions, like asking “what if I could breath underwater?” Because of course there is just one way to deal with our insecurities, ailments, weaknesses and moral failings. That way is Jesus, and there will never be another. But silly or not, asking these things has helped me think through the reason for my troubles, and helped me be a bit less eager to be rid of them. Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between a blessing and a curse.
Posted byAthol Dickson at 10:11 AM
Labels: The Cure
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