When a conflict arises in my Christian walk, I find there are two way to deal with it: 1) I do what feels right and try to justify my action biblically. If that fails then I say that my problem isn’t covered in the bible, so it is exempt.
2) I go to the bible first, and judge my own feeling on the conflict, based on the same or similar examples from the bible, and where the bible doesn’t directly address the conflict I read as much as I can about the flavor of the conflict. Via Oscam’s Razor, you shave a thing down to its essence and find the same underlying essence/conflict in the bible and then judge your emotion/desires based on that. There is nothing new under the sun. When the author wrote this, I don’t think he was think about tangible things, like cars and computers. Obviously, there are new things, but the conflict and the sources of human conflict are the same now as they have always been. The ways we deal with and rationalize those conflicts have changed, but the conflicts themselves haven’t.
The ending idea represented, however, is this: Do your personal feelings supersede the bible or does the bible supersede your personal feelings. If your feelings are primary and the bible is secondary, you are not living a Christ centered life (at least regarding the specific situation you are dealing with).
I find it interesting, the duality presented in us that we give to Christ that which we have already mastered, thus robbing Him and ourselves of the glory of his sacrifice, strength and love, while keeping for ourselves the hardest personal issues, that we are ashamed of and cannot defeat on our own. These we withhold, partly due to the shame, because we believe God wants perfection before he will love and help us, and partly because we need/are receiving something from the personal problem, that we don’t feel God will provide or replace with and through his love. We read the words of the bible and nod appreciatively, and in our heart of heart, wish it were so, but believe it is for someone else, and not us.
When will Gods love, and promise of a new life, be for you? When will the hardest, sometimes secret issues and problems that burden you mount up to the level, when you finally realize you have two choices: Breakdown and follow God, give your faith to him, give your burdens to him, or to leave God and work it out on your own. One way, you will be saved, the other……………
