Episode 185: Calling the Thing What It Is
Kitchen appliances and plumbing tips; homemade Bay Rum aftershave, Political Science for Dummies, on being “weak on sanctification,” Heidelberg Thesis 21, and “Me & Julio Down by the Schoolyard.” Â We don’t know how to tie this one together, so we’re pouring Flying Monkey Martini’s and spinning “Billions of Brazilians” by Don Tiki.
Songs:
“Billions of Brazilians” – Don Tiki
“Crickets Sing for Ana Maria” – Astrud Gilberto
That’s Law with a capital “L” … “Inception”-style, reality shattering Law.
Whoah to me, I am undone. Every particle of my self is fraudulent.
All of my goals and the entire framework for my existence are amiss.
Note to my self: “Who cares what you think?”
Thanks, God Whisperers … I needed that.
I wanted to comment on the idea of killing an evil desire, that it can’t be negotiated with … it just has to die. “The one who drinks from this well will thirst again.”
Buddism would say that all desire must be extinguished. Christianity makes the distinction between righteous and evil desires. The book Song of Solomon is an example of the Bible celebrating Godly sexual desires (and King Solomon himself is an example of the perversion of those desires, with his many pagan wives).
CS Lewis was big on the idea that even our evil desires point towards a real, uncorrupted desire which is what we *really* want. Like that saying, “Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee”.
In his book The Great Divorce, Lewis imagines a man on his journey to heaven who struggles with lust, which is personified as a talking lizard that sits on his shoulder. An angel meets the pilgrim and offers to destroy the pesky creature. The lizard tries desperately to dissuade his host, but eventually the man agrees to be rid of it once and for all, adding, “Do it fast before I change my mind.” With a quick snap, the angel breaks the lizard’s back, after which it promptly transforms into a mighty steed, capable of carrying him up into the high mountains.
To this point, I would add the verse about Jesus enduring the shame of the cross for the joy set before him. Because of his great desire to save us.
Of course, once you get into Old Man/New Man it breaks down. The Old Man *only* desires evil, like the grave, never satisfied … hence, there is no rest for the wicked.
Thanks be to God who satisfies our New Man’s deepest desires in Christ … “Taste and see that the Lord is good.”