Monsters

Though it is a rare occurrence, every few seasons it seems that I have a dream that reminds me of the inhumanity of humanity. Such was the case last night. (Suffice that to be descriptive enough).

Today I am reflective of something I read a while ago: "Every one says forgiveness is a lovely idea, until they have something to forgive" (C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity). A similar concept applies to common thought about humanity: everyone says there are bad people, but no one who says so thinks he is a bad person.

Christians who read something like that and immediately direct their minds to criminals are a prime example; we make wonderful hypocrites. Mormons think they are good, Jehovah's Witnesses think they are good, Catholics think they are good, Muslims think (hope!) they are good, atheists think they are "good" - and so forth.

A father's thoughts about his son who beat up a child is another strong example. How one's kid can gang up with two friends and bang up a smaller kid and one can still say, "He just got in a bad crowd," is beyond my mind.

Something we must all understand about the human nature is that it is in many ways like the nature of a beast. And something I must understand is this: I am a monster. Because of sin, I have the potential to do horrendous things. There is no such thing as a good person, and I am no exception.

And this is the state we were all in when God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son to die for us (Jn. 3:16). It happened while we were still helpless; it happened while we were yet sinners (Rom. 5:6-8; 1Tim. 1:15).

For as long as man denies this, man will be a kind of sub-man. Not an evolutionary genius - a degraded monster. There is only one antidote; there is only one hope.