broken

You are a messed up person.

In fairness, so am I. Really, we all are. We broken, bent in places deep down. We don't care about others like we should. We do some really stupid and hurtful things to ourselves. We put too much value in the wrong stuff. And the strange thing is, we do all these things that do us harm in the name of doing 'what feels good.'

I don't know when it happens to us, but we get broken. It must be early on, before we are able to remember what it was like to not be broken, to not be so messed up. And while I don't know when we break, I have a theory about what goes down when we do.

Selfish
At some point, we become self aware. We know we exist. And on heels of that comes the thought that we are, simply because we exist, the center of the known existence. Don't believe me? Look at a toddler not getting what they want. Or look at any person, really. Some get over the intial thought that someone dares to disagree with our clearly superior viewpoint quickly and we barely notice it. But others rant and rave, cite their credentials, and remain indignant. We become far more concerned about ourselves than anyone, or anything in all of Creation. We do what we do because it feels right, it feels good to us. Even when we do good things, it really boils down to doing to feel good about ourselves or receive some award. It's an 'all about ME' world to us. Which means the natural progression is elevate ourselves to...

godhood aka Pride
Yep. We think we are gods. WE decide our fates, WE make our rules, WE are the one others should bow to. Oh, we'd never say that, that's what madmen and egomaniacal supervillains and surgeons ( it was in a movie I once saw) say. But in our actions, we reveal the truth. When we justify breaking the rules of religion or the state, we are claiming our 'godhood.' When we demand our way, we claim it. When we think less of another person, we scream it. And since we are 'gods', we better get what we want. Like, now.

The Twins of Indulgence
Greed and Lust are the twins of indulgence. They come from the idea that we deserve whatever we want. They come from a place of intitlement, of ownership of something that others just don't yet know we possess. While our greed reveals itself in our need and pursuit of more money, possessions, or prizes, lust reveals itself in our inability (or lack of desire) to keep ourselves controlled. Why shouldn't we get what we want and do what we want? Are we not 'gods?'

And from there, our brokenness grows. Like a cracked windshield in cold weather, the brokenness grows until we are shattered. Our world comes crushing down on us when we realize we have done this to ourselves. We've thought ourselves untouchable, masters of our destiny.

We bought our own lie.

So we try to fix it. We go to meetings. We read books. We self limit. We medicate. We make apologies. We try to do good to make up for the wrong.

We treat the symptoms.

All of the things we do in our brokenness are symptoms of the greater disease: at some point, we made ourselves the most important thing in Creation. Notice our reaction to the brokenness is doing stuff that is focused on what we can control, what we can do to better ourselves. It is still all about ME.

There is exactly ONE thing that can fix what is broken about us. One thing that can, over a lifetime, close up the cracks and fill the holes that tear us apart.

Jesus told us that he came like a doctor to heal the sick- not the well. And the Great Physician realizes that your pride and greed and lust and countless other sins are the symptom of the disease of not putting God first. So He heals us in the place we first contracted the disease- our heart. He speaks to us there and says that He loves us- not because we are so awesome, but because the Father is. Jesus doesn't love us because of who we are- He loves us because of who He, the Father and the Holy Spirit is.

The cure to our brokenness is to see and accept that it is not about us, it is about God. And until we do, our attempts at fixing ourselves will only leave us more broken. Trying to make things right apart from Christ is impossible. He is the ONLY cure.

You are a messed up person, just like me. But Jesus isn't. And in that, there is hope.