Plotting to hurt others or actually doing it is the next negative trait I want to discuss. 

Should we be people who struggle to forgive someone who wrongs us? Do thoughts of retaliation and “what if” swirl around and around in our mind? Do we have thoughts of hitting another? Does that damage that other person or ourselves?

Sometimes it gets to the point we cannot sleep because of the angry thoughts and conniving that goes along with them. This lack of sleep and circulating thought pattern makes us less effective the next day and builds toxins in our body making us more likely to perpetuate bad behaviours the next day, perhaps on some unsuspecting innocent person.

This is bad for us and innocent bystanders and rarely impacts the person who causes the problem.
So why do we do it?

 

Isn't it because we build a false belief that by hurting another, (that’s called malicious thinking) we will get satisfaction. Often it is also the easy way out! It’s much easier to give into anger than control it.

Letting others see us being controlled in anger provoking situations isn't really enough either. We can be outwardly calm, but inwardly churning, swearing and commiting murder in our hearts! It’s easier to control anger outwardly than to forgive and let it go altogether.

Then if we think the challenge is forgiving and letting it go we need to think deeper. There is a more significant challenge for those who want to have a purely powerful life. You see, it’s easier to forgive and let it go, than to love despite the bad behaviour of others!

God wants us to get to love those who damage us, but not to permit them to abuse us either! This is tough love! It is good for us, and also good for the person who has failed by hurting us(or others). It needs supernatural strength to achieve this!

That’s what God wants to make available to us. We however need to make decisions to accept this help.

Do we need this help? It’s freely available according to the bible message! I need it, what about you? All we have to do is ask and then follow God's advice for all aspects of our life. Start by reading the bible (not at the beginning, that's difficult! Start at the gospel of John from chapter one verse 20 onwards. Find out who Jesus was, is, and how God's spirit helps who  those who accept Jesus' teaching and apply them. That could be you! It is me!).

More on what God hates Monday. . .

Lying is another negative aspect! So why should we tell the truth? So much of our common everyday attitude suggests we can say and do anything “if we can get away with it”!

Should we accept this philosophy as true? Notice that the subtle implication of this approach is that nobody will get to know the difference, so it does not matter!

 

It does matter! Even if others don’t know, we know we have lied! It changes us, even if nobody else knows!  It will cause us to develop destructive behaviours as a minimum, or we will develop double standards that will harm us at some later stage. Lying is a tool that sets up within us destructive forces that will later take us down. They take time to get internalized within us and become a habit, but sooner or later will come out and hurt us when we least want or expect it.

 

I am arguing this on a common sense front. The argument is independent of the key fact that God says that those of us who lie disqualify ourselves from being provided the spiritual help and insurance available to us. In business life, lying is a sure path to disaster, in personal life it’s a sure way to become unpopular, in God’s love it’s a sure way to ensure you keep yourself away from his support. Perhaps we should avoid this behaviour and should also avoid being excessively exposed to media that supports us internalizing this negative behaviour!

So  how do we get to have happiness and contentment in what we do? What does God’s handbook say about how we are to live? How can we get to escape the anger, rage, humility and shame cycle that so many of us fall into? Let’s see what the bible suggests is negative before we look into how it guides us to the positive.

 

One of the oldest parts of the bible suggests there are a few things that should be avoided by people. We can find this in a part called proverbs chapter 6, verses 16 to 19. It was written by an ancient king who saw many things happen around him. He wrote stuff down to help us understand things that are going on around us. He points out that God hates a few things. We will address the seven key things hated by God briefly in the next few blogs.

 

Pride! He suggests God hates it when we are full of self pride. Do you like people who are full of their own importance and proud of it? Don’t you think we need to avoid having an attitude of superiority over others? Superiority can lead to us treating others badly. Perhaps we should be careful of absorbing this attitude even unintentionally. We are all different and all have different abilities to others, but perhaps we should resist considering the value of others as being either of more or less worth than ourselves. Have you every done this? I am sad to say I have! Who do you consider superior to yourself at the moment, and who do you consider inferior? Amazingly, the bible says God loves everyone and that Christians should even love their enemies! That’s radical! Perhaps we should understand that in God’s scale of worth, we don’t measure differently when viewed from our perspective.

 

Check to see who you think is worthy of more respect, or less respect than yourself? This will tell you who, or what entity, you have given authority to change your attitudes. These are the people or things you have given authority to change your personality! Will this group improve or damage your view of your worth?

Hopefully you will have come to the conclusion that others are of similar worth to yourself. Only God himself is worthy of total respect. To the extent that others allow God to work through them, they should be given the authority to change us. (That’s my opinion anyhow!). Do you agree that we shouldn’t treat others or allow others to act as if their worth is greater or less than our own?

How many movies or TV programs portray someone ignoring and abusing underlings? How many portray a respect for all people and an understanding that all people are worthy of respect! Probably not as many as in the first category! We should probably remember ignoring and abusing others is damaging to ourselves, and this knowledge should be used when recalling and retelling media information bursts that we have exposed ourselves to!

I want to get rid of false pride, how about you?

The pot flies across the kitchen! The fist smacks through the drywall! A push sends the person flying across the room! Ears hurt from the screaming! A face, contorted from Hell itself, glares at me as the mouth moves, spurting streams of hateful words!

 

Have you ever seen or experienced any of these or similar situations? What would you have done to have peace and happiness in your heart at that time instead of the emotions you experienced! Maybe you just disconnect and allow a dull numbness to take over so you can hide away from emotional turmoil. Maybe you get angry as well! Maybe your stomach twists into knots with anxiety. What is the value of being able to avoid this type of behaviour?

More about this in tomorrows blog. . .

 

Think of the movies and TV and consider what we see there. Truthfully, there is little that is positive and good for building us up in the high impact media and entertainment. Why?

 

Movies need to work us up or “arouse” us, to get us to the “high” that makes them memorable. We don’t get as easily arouse by people showing us happy contented stuff. The industry builds their reputation by yanking our emotions around as much as possible.  Extremes are good for the film industry. They major in using sexual lust, gluttony, greed, disgust, anger, envy, and pride to get us worked up. They don’t particularly care if it damages those of us watching! We need to be entertained and given our emotional fixes so the movie industry can make money! Am I right or am I totally missing the mark? You decide!

 

Next, media excuse their support of these behaviours by saying these negative images and sounds don’t affect us(the viewers) adversely, and they often argue we encounter this “reality” daily anyhow!

 

Think of a few media impacts on us. Why do we get more fearful when alone at night watching a horror movie? Do we encounter this type of event daily? How many murders do you see a week in the media? How many have you encountered personally in your life? How come we can remember scene upon scene of movies, sometimes down to the very words the actors have used? Do we really think all that information inside our heads doesn’t modify what we do and say?

 

Are these words and images going to build contentment and peace inside us? What do you think? The movie and TV industry seems to say their products don’t change how we react. At least, the industry doesn’t seem to be changing to support a more positive society, does it? What does your common sense tell you? Again, I am not saying movies are bad. I am also not saying all negative movies with violence are bad. What I am saying is that misuse of, and continual absorbing of their content, can change us in a harmful way, particularly if we don’t even know what it is that these media information bursts are doing to us. We probably need to establish a set of criteria against which we can evaluate them, and actively determine what could impact us and what will not. Then we should probably act upon what we find out.

There was this guy who was a billionaire.  He dressed in expensive clothes,drove a Ferrari, and owned a whole lot of food chains. He  loved to party, had lots of friends, and organised a party every day at his estate. Now his house was located quite close to the road, and if you walked past any time after noon you could clearly hear all the festivities from the gate at the end of his short drive.

Some poor people who lived on the streats often put a beggar who couldn’t walk out next to the rich dude's driveway so that she could beg for scraps or money from those going in or out. This beggar got more and more ill and finally got covered with sores. The rich man’s dogs would sometimes come out the gate and lick the beggars sores if the gate was left open for a while. They were the only life from the estate that seemed to care!

The beggars name was “Grace” and she longed to eat a small amount of the food that she often saw being carried away with the garbage. The dogs were able to pull open the garbage bags and eat garbage that was piled up at the end of the driveway, but she was too weak to get to it before it was taken away.

One cold winter day the beggar died, and angels took her to heaven. There she met someone called Abraham. He was a mighty respectable person and welcomed her with open arms.

The rich guy also died. He was buried in a fancy plot in the graveyard with rock band playing the music. The funeral was a blast, but the the rich man ended up in pain and anguish in horrible place called  Hell.

In pain and anguish the rich man looking up he saw in the distance Abraham and Grace.

“Hiya Dude" the rich man called out, "help me out! Send  Grace with a some water to cool my tongue” he shouted. “this fire hurts and what is worse, I can't die again, it's terrible, please, I need water!”

Abraham said, "My friend, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, and Grace received bad things. Now she is comforted here and you are in agony.

Besides that, there is a huge chasm between you and us, we can’t get there, like you can’t get here."

“Okay Dude”, said the rich guy. “Just send Grace to my Dad and five brothers, to warn them! They don’t want to end up here!”

Abraham answered, “ They have the bible and can read, let them learn from it!”

“No Dude, you don’t understand. If someone goes back from the dead to them, then they will listen and change their ways before it’s too late!”

Abraham replied, “If they don’t listen to what the bible says, they won’t listen to someone that appears to have come back to life again either.”