Hey guys,
Remember that post I did on innocence a while back? You know...this one?? http://greenlightgoredlightstop.blogspot.com/2012/01/apologetic-innocence.html
Well, I have some new thoughts...
Innocence sucks. It doesn't prepare you for what lies ahead of you; because we don't live in a world that is innocent, we live in a broken, messed-up world that is full of sin. Unless we recognize that we are broken, and that sin exists, we will never be ready to join the Kingdom that we are called to.
So I've been reading "My Utmost for His Highest" by Oswald Chambers (It's a day-by-day devotional thing. I recommend it, I really enjoy it.) and today's entry is about "Reconciling one's Self to the Fact of Sin." A lot of times you see Christians who want to avoid the sin issue. They treat sin like it's a four letter word. Like we shouldn't talk about it because people might get offended or it might make people uncomfortable, but if there's anything I learned at my church, it's that you ought to be comfortable with being uncomfortable. So anyways, my dear Oswald Chambers was talking about how if you refuse to recognize that people are pretty much selfish and spiteful and awful, you won't be ready when life hits you and they will drag you into that stream of thought because you haven't done any defense against it.
But if you can reconcile yourself with the thought of sin, you will be ready to take it on. So if you are innocent and kind of laissez faire about the whole "humans are evil" issue, prepare to be taken down. When I think of an innocent person, I almost always think of a child. They have no idea why running around naked is unacceptable, they will put anything in their mouths (ignoring the existence of germs & viruses) and they never ever stop to think about finishing the last cookie. They exist in a world where harm cannot befall them, until it does and then they don't have the coping mechanisms to deal with it.
God did not make us to stay "innocent" our whole lives: running through life with blinders on, oblivious to all the pits and snares around us...he made us to be smart. He gave us special "trap spotting goggles" to wear. He trained us how to deal with snares that we find all around us. So we can disregard what he has given us and try to deny the existence of the deep dark pits of selfishness, greed, immorality, and temptation we are surrounded by, or we can buck up and survive this like the freaking zombie apocalypse everyone always talks about!
What's it going to be?
