I am sure you have had the experience. You are on a divided, multilane highway trying to get around a car. It is going slow enough that you caught it. Once you get by you pull away. The problem is passing. There seems to be a built in sense of competition in people that when a car starts to pass them they drive a little faster. I don’t know how many times I have overtaken someone when I was driving 55 MPH but I had to get up to 70 to get around them.
I think we have that same kind of sensor built into our psyche that responds to other people even when we are not thinking about it. Sometimes it comes out as competition. Sometimes it comes out as conformity. Sometimes it produces conflict.
Like how we live our lives paced on people around us instead of the posted standards God has given us. We seem to derive our sense of right and wrong from what our culture tells us. We see this emerging in areas like marriage. For all of history marriage has been defined generally as one man and one women. Some cultures allowed multiple wives, but generally it was one on one. Homosexuality has been tolerated or ignored but at no time has anyone gone far enough to call such relationships a marriage. Such an idea was obviously silly, even to the pagans. Until now. And why? Because we are told by the celebrities, scholars and talking heads that it is good and if we feel different we are out of step. So most people slowly conform.
Cars come with speedometers. The roads come with speed limits. The same can be said about life. Ignore the limits at your peril or the peril of your civilization.
God will not be mocked.
homo unius libri
And the older I get, the more I say, "Maranatha!"
ReplyDeleteGrace and peace.