Authentic: My Friend, The Instigator
I had a friend in High School named John who was an instigator. John would run over to someone, give them a shove, then hurry back to his group and act like nothing happened. Then, when that person came over and started pushing him back, he would say things like, “What? What did I do? I didn’t do anything! Why so hostile?”
I heard a podcast a few weeks ago from The Art of Manliness called “Why Is It So Hard To Admit You Were Wrong?”. It’s a really interesting (to me) conversation about cognitive dissonance and the human tendency to justify ourselves, even at our worst. We think of ourselves as good people who do what is right and think the right way about the world. But sometimes we do awful things. So to bring these two conflicting ideas together in our minds, we find justifications for our actions, or even adjust our memory of events to reframe them in a way we can live with.
We are not bad people because we did a bad thing, we were justified in doing it. What looks like a bad thing was actually the RIGHT thing to do in that situation.
The neuroscientist being interviewed on the podcast brings us to the conclusion that we have intellectual integrity when we are able to say, “I am a generally good person who did this bad thing.” There may be no justification or reasonable explanation for it, but it happened and we truly ask forgiveness, take responsibility, and can then move on.
This week’s study is on Malachi, which feels quite a bit like a teacher accusing my friend John of instigating trouble, and his response of “What did I do? Why so hostile?”
We’ve jumped ahead 100 years in the story of Scripture. Haggai and Zechariah prophesied around 522 BCE, at a time of rebuilding life in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile. After 100 years back in the Promised Land, the Israelites had returned to their former pattern of forgetting quickly the goodness of God and returning to their former ways of life.
Here are the primary accusations:
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”
Malachi 4:5-6
It is the human condition to live consistently with what we believe to be true and right. And when we violate that with our bad behavior, our tendency, like the Israelites, is to justify our actions or reframe the events in a way we can live with.
A heart turned toward God recognizes that we are only righteous because He says we are by the sacrifice of His Son! A heart toward God acknowledges that bad behavior is our human default position! A heart toward God is quick to acknowledge and repent of those things in our lives that don’t match the character He is building in us.
And in this way, our actual character begins to line up with the righteous character of God.
Ask your kids these questions:
What’s one time you did something terrible and then tried to spin it to make yourself feel better?
Do you feel better after justifying your bad actions or after confessing them and taking responsibility for them? Why?
I heard a podcast a few weeks ago from The Art of Manliness called “Why Is It So Hard To Admit You Were Wrong?”. It’s a really interesting (to me) conversation about cognitive dissonance and the human tendency to justify ourselves, even at our worst. We think of ourselves as good people who do what is right and think the right way about the world. But sometimes we do awful things. So to bring these two conflicting ideas together in our minds, we find justifications for our actions, or even adjust our memory of events to reframe them in a way we can live with.
We are not bad people because we did a bad thing, we were justified in doing it. What looks like a bad thing was actually the RIGHT thing to do in that situation.
The neuroscientist being interviewed on the podcast brings us to the conclusion that we have intellectual integrity when we are able to say, “I am a generally good person who did this bad thing.” There may be no justification or reasonable explanation for it, but it happened and we truly ask forgiveness, take responsibility, and can then move on.
This week’s study is on Malachi, which feels quite a bit like a teacher accusing my friend John of instigating trouble, and his response of “What did I do? Why so hostile?”
We’ve jumped ahead 100 years in the story of Scripture. Haggai and Zechariah prophesied around 522 BCE, at a time of rebuilding life in Jerusalem after the Babylonian Exile. After 100 years back in the Promised Land, the Israelites had returned to their former pattern of forgetting quickly the goodness of God and returning to their former ways of life.
Here are the primary accusations:
- Improper Sacrifices (ch. 1): The priests were offering whatever the people brought, regardless of whether the sacrifice met the qualifications outlined in the Mosaic Law. And the people replied, “What did we do?”
- Divorce (ch. 2): The men were treating their wives poorly, improperly using divorce to break their marriage vows and essentially commit adultery. And the people replied “Why so hostile?”
- Temple giving (ch. 3): The people were withholding their 10% Temple tax which was used to care for the Temple, provide for priests, and give to the poor. And the people replied “How have we robbed you?”
“Behold, I am going to send you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and terrible day of the Lord. He will restore the hearts of the fathers to their children and the hearts of the children to their fathers, so that I will not come and smite the land with a curse.”
Malachi 4:5-6
It is the human condition to live consistently with what we believe to be true and right. And when we violate that with our bad behavior, our tendency, like the Israelites, is to justify our actions or reframe the events in a way we can live with.
A heart turned toward God recognizes that we are only righteous because He says we are by the sacrifice of His Son! A heart toward God acknowledges that bad behavior is our human default position! A heart toward God is quick to acknowledge and repent of those things in our lives that don’t match the character He is building in us.
And in this way, our actual character begins to line up with the righteous character of God.
Ask your kids these questions:
What’s one time you did something terrible and then tried to spin it to make yourself feel better?
Do you feel better after justifying your bad actions or after confessing them and taking responsibility for them? Why?
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