After I felt compelled toward some sort of large-scale ministry, God decided to demonstrate a more direct approach to my overly self-sufficient attitude.
To make the most sense in explaining the situation, I’ll have to break from the chronological flow to articulate what had happened.
My failing was within a severe logical fallacy, which I imparted to my wife Tori as well through the following flow of reasoning:
- All actions are driven by decisions, which are in turn directed by understanding and habits.
- Changing understanding and habits alters decisions and, therefore, changes results.
- All personal change is a product of behaviorism.
This, however, is tremendously wrong in a spiritual context. If we presume first principles in our own understanding, we then derive all information as extensions of that understanding.
This is antagonistic to the worldview God has for us:
- God created the universe itself for the purpose of a relationship with humanity.
- Even in our fallen state, this is still true, and begins within the scope of divine revelation, which includes praying and reading the Bible.
- All worthwhile understanding is a derived component of our relationship with God, who is also the Creator of all our consequences.
In the foolishness of the first logical flow, I turned from God’s eternal power and divine nature to instead pursue the Stoic Logos. The “Natural Law” would exist in its vacuum of perfection, and would protect me if I complied with the rules of reality.
The tragedy of the unique idolatry within Stoic philosophy is that it does yield a successful life:
- Most people considered “worldly”, even among Christian culture, engage in impulsive and baser things (e.g., crack cocaine).
- Sacrifice for a greater good such as parenting or future financial wellness is often praised in most middle/upper-class circles.
- Like Buddhism, Stoicism is very far-removed from our comparatively comfortable lifestyles, so there’s a certain “coolness factor” through its novelty, mixed with plenty of misinformation about what the philosophy actually entails.
I never bothered with Christian joy because I’d rather produce and build than be satisfied with the present moment. My preoccupation with death superseded my capacity to be happy, and I was therefore working endlessly into vanity, toiling without reaping.
Stoic philosophy is the natural state of the self-sufficient man, and is completely antagonistic to God’s command:
- The intellectual asceticism of Stoicism is part of the warnings at the end of Colossians 2: it is of no value against the indulgence of the flesh.
- Further, it is the beginnings of the Ur-Overmen of Nietzsche’s assertions: a people who find direct joy in their suffering as relabeled masochists.
When merged with Christianity, it develops a root of bitterness as the self-inflicted idolatry of one’s self-sufficiency robs all joy or well-being. God is nothing close to being a friend, but is instead an overseer we’re called to obey. All that exists is the despairing march, with a hopeful promise someday to those who suffer in the name of Christ, not seeing they suffer for their own glory instead: they will receive the same spiritual reward as if they had been publicly advertising it.
I chose to follow God logically in 2006, but I had never become devoted to following Him: He was simply the most accurate of all the truths, and there was no loyalty or commitment to it. If some other religion had somehow become allegedly truer, I’d have renounced the God of the Bible and followed the God of the Qu’ran, or the pantheistic god of Brahmin, or something else.
Underneath it all, though, this meant I still relied on my own understanding to build into what I knew. I gave God my allegiance and devotion, but it was in service of The Truth. I made the created thing more important than the Creator.
Either way, once we had demonstrated our isolationist tendencies far enough, God used two major fronts to demonstrate Tori’s and my complete incapacity for self-sufficiency.