Trust the voice within

PunkStar · Posted: Sun Sep 19, 2004 6:08 pm Post subject: Trust the voice within

Ahh, it's been a while. But here is the third "Sermon In A Second". So named for the amount of research that goes into these things.

Have you ever had one of those cartoon moments. You know. When the main character has to make a difficult moral decision about what they should do. And the little devil and angel (that usually look like the character in an old halloween costume) appear on the character's shoulders and try to persuade the character to do either the right or wrong thing. Well, the following is an excerpt from one such conversation that I made up to illustrate my point.

Scene starts with a guy (whom we'll call Guy, how's that for creativity for you Laughing

) walking around his school. Then he sees his girlfriend. She's sitting alone and looks pretty angry. And our story starts here.

GUY: Wow, she looks angry. Maybe I should apologize. I did crash her car after all. I knew I shouldn't have gone drinking with my friends last night. Darrggh, what a mess I made. Stupid, stupid, stupid. What should I do?

ANGEL APPEARS ON GUY'S LEFT SHOULDER

ANGEL: Saying sorry would be a good start. She really loved that car. She did spend months building it into the hotrod it was before last night. After all, you smashed it up pretty bad. Maybe then you should offer to pay to get the car fixed. But let's do the obvious thing first and see where that leads.

DEVIL APPEARS ON GUY'S RIGHT SHOULDER

GUY: Thanks for the guilt trip.

DEVIL: Oh, give the guy a break. That tree shouldn't have been on the nature strip anyway. Guy did the town a service by plowing it down. I say Guy should go over there and invite her out Friday night.

ANGEL: And what would that achieve? She'll only yell at him, call him an insensitive jerk, and dump him faster than an alcoholic finds a bar on St. Patrick's Day. Besides, where will he get a car?

DEVIL: His mom has a nice SUV that will be lying dormant all weekend. She'll be off at the knitting expo all weekend, someone may as well get some use out of it.

ANGEL: Guy will still have to deal with an angry girlfriend. What can you do about that smartie?

DEVIL: Let her be angry. Women are like angels, always up in the air and harping about something.

ANGEL: Hey, that's a cheap shot. I take offense to that.

DEVIL: Alright, I got the saintly one offended. Now that I've achieved my life's work, what am I gonna do with myself? Anyway, it won't matter how offended she is at the start of the date. She'll love him again by the end of it. Just watch a romantic moive, do the old yawn and hug, and say you love her. You'll be back in her good books before you can say "Brad Pitt isn't that hot".

ANGEL: That's quite a stereotypical view of women. Quite mean really.

DEVIL: Hey, she's your typical hot babe.

ANGEL: The politically correct term is "attractive young lady".

DEVIL: What do I care about political correctness. I'm just a by-product of PunkStar's overactive imagination and severe lack of social life. Laughing

ANGEL: Good point, hard to argue with that. But getting back to the point. Guy should still apologize to his girlfriend and hope she forgives him. It's the only right and honest thing to do.

DEVIL: Or you could be the alpha male and never give into anybody. It's a sign of weakness. You don't want you're girlfriend thinking you're weak do you?

ANGEL: Well Guy, it's up to you. Do what you think is best. But just remember, do the wrong thing, and I'll make sure an unhealthy level of guilt is sent.

THE ANGEL DISAPPEARS AND THEN REAPPEARS WITH A RATHER LARGE SYRINGE CONTAINING A GREEN, GOOEY SUBSTANCE. PRESUMABLY IT'S THE INJECTION OF GUILT ONE GETS WHEN HE BUYS A GUITAR HE KNOWS HE CAN'T AFFORD. THEN THE ANGEL DISAPPEARS, SYRINGE AND ALL.

DEVIL: Guy, good luck. I know you'll do the right thing and come through for me. That angel has been getting too high and mighty. And you've been listening to him an awful lot lately.

GUY: Well didn't I listen to you last time and that's why I'm in this mess?

DEVIL: Good point.

THE DEVIL GIVES GUY A PAT ON THE SHOULDER AND THEN DISAPPEARS. THOUGH YOU CAN SEE HE LOOKS A BIT NERVOUS.

In case you're wondering how I came up with this. This board is probably the closest thing I have to a social life outside of school time. And I spend appalling amounts of time watching television and surfing the internet. I've picked up a lot of bad jokes and general writing skills. As well as an, um, "interesting" imagination. Anyway, I think I somehow managed to bury a serious point into that little story above. Just give me a second and I'll dig it up.

Oh yeah, here it is. Our conscience is a valuable tool. A gift from God that helps us make decisions. Guy's worked fairly normally. A moment of conscience is often a battle between what we want to do (as represented by the little devil) and what we feel is the right thing to do.

Now I assume everyone reading this is a Christian. If not, I guess the rest of this isn't going to be greatly relevant to you. But feel free to read on. If you are a Christian, then the point of your life is to serve God and do the right thing in response to his love for us. The conscience is quite a useful tool when moral decisions so we can obey God and do the right thing. When we have to make a decision, our conscience seems to give us both sides of the story and it's up to us to choose which side we will follow.

What I'm trying to advocate here is the usefulness of the conscience. So when it comes time for you to make a moral decision, have a listen to those voices in your head and compare them to what Jesus would do. Then do what you think is right.

Have fun serving the Lord in whatever capacity he sends you to.

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 815 Location: Texas

Hey Punkstar, my 6yo daughter and me were just talking about this useful analogy last week. You remember when we were discussing our sin nature(flesh) vs our Godly one? Regarding the conscience, some think the "still small voice" mentioned in 1st Kings 19 refers to the same conscience that we hear today-that is, God's voice talking to us. This idea was very appealing to me-so much so that it inspired a song. I agree that the point of life is to serve God. But consider this-how about if we focus that idea to read the point of life is to glorify God?" This idea gives me a filter of sorts-a litmus test to judge every activity in my life. Thanks for the Sermon in a Second. Be God's-scott

PunkStar · Posted: Fri Oct 01, 2004 6:14 pm Post subject:

I think both those readings make good sense. I'm happy to use either. Good thought.

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 815 Location: Texas

Sorry to belabour a point but bear (!) with me. I think "glorifying" is more precise than "serving" because the first implies an attitude of cheerfulness and willingness whereas the second...well, you can serve in drudgery and moroseness and technically still be serving. Smile

Be His my Bro-scott

PunkStar · Posted: Sat Oct 02, 2004 9:53 pm Post subject:

I tend to think of the word "glorifiying" in a different meaning to serving, rather than using the terms as essentially synonymous. I suppose glorifying is a slightly better word though.

Seems a bit nit-picky, but I see your point.

sharring · Tiger Joined: 04 Feb 2004 Posts: 815 Location: Texas

It's VERY nit-picky. And now I've changed my mind. After bouncing this point off of another Christian who's opinion i value i'm back to serving Exclamation

He used the Book of Job to illustrate to me that perhaps obedience (serving) is better than my defination of glorifying. Job wasn't happy or cheerful but he WAS obedient. Thus God refered to him as a "rightous" man. Be God's-scott

PunkStar · Posted: Sun Oct 03, 2004 10:12 pm Post subject:

Well, yeah. That's true. We should still serve (and glorify Very Happy

) God, even when we don't particularly feel too happy.

I think they are both good words and either could fit in the paragraph just as effectively, especially in light of the reasons you've given for both. It's all good.