Comfort Zones

The terms "safe spaces" and "trigger warning" have cropped up frequently in the past year or so in the media, often accompanied by photographs or videos of protesting young people on college campuses. Joseph Baity helps to define these terms and the philosophical/political movements that have propelled them onto our national consciousness.

Richard Ritenbaugh continues his exposé of artistic and spiritual resistance, an analogy derived from Stephen Pressfield's The War of Art, a manual designed to overcome artistic resistance and many forms of self-sabotage. The core of self-sabotage is our carnal human nature, which absolutely abhors any change which leads to self-sacrifice or to growth. Human nature is comfortable with the status quo, accepting the domination of Satan's influence and the world. Human nature is enmity (hatred and hostility) against God and His Holy Law. Human nature has instinctive antipathy to anything good. Most of the biblical luminaries, including Moses, Jonah, David, and Gideon demonstrated resistance to God's prompts, indicating that they initially feared men more than they feared God. When we are called, repent, and are baptized, our sins are washed away, but the baggage from our human nature stays with us. Like Gideon, we are tempted to put God repeatedly to the test, in spite of Christ's warning that an evil generation looks for a sign. When we resist God, we, like Peter, risk inadvertently channeling Satan. To actively overcome resistance, we must: (1) not forget God's laws, but etch them on our heart, (2) practice justice, mercy, and lovingkindness, (3) trust God and have faith in Him, and (4) remain humble, running from evil as we would run from a nest of angry hornets. We must put on the whole armor of God in order to stand.

In His Sermon on the Mount, our Savior gives us some basic but very helpful and necessary advice about living as Christians in this world: "Therefore do not worry, saying 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' ..."

John Ritenbaugh, suggesting that we have an ambivalent attitude to change, resisting it when it upsets our equilibrium or desiring it when we are in dire straits, proclaims that God deliberately places change in our lives to bring about spiritual growth toward perfection. The second law of thermodynamics teaches us that all matter is in a perpetual state of decay unless energy is expended to halt the process. God's command to Adam to dress and keep the environment indicates the dynamics of this principle. Our offspring would be stalled at a premature state of their developmental process if they did not weather tests and developmental tasks, some of them extremely unpleasant and uncomfortable. God as our Parent is no different; He will not curtail change in our lives until we are conformed into His image. God is the author of change in order to bring events to the conclusion He wants.

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  Over the past several days, I have been very uncomfortable. Since my adrenal fatigue set in during the summer of 2008, I have had a more-or-less persistent ache in the area of my right hip....

John W. Ritenbaugh:  How often do we wish that, when life's events are producing pleasure, satisfaction, and a sense that all is well in the world--at least in our world--things would remain that way forever? ...

Richard T. Ritenbaugh:  A few weeks ago, a local talk-show host, self-described as "an aging hippie," remarked that he believed that in most matters one can find "the truth somewhere in the middle. ...

Of all people, one might think, Christians should be the most blessed, yet they often fall under heavy trials. However, the reality is that God is putting us through the paces, correcting us and refining us, to bring us to salvation.

John Ritenbaugh reiterates that God alone chooses the servants through whom He works His will. Sometimes the rationale God uses for selecting His vessels defies worldly wisdom. The major reason for the horrendous split of the greater church of God was the rejection of the doctrines God's servant and Apostle Herbert Armstrong had restored. Apparently, God has used this confusing state of affairs to weed out those individuals who will not yield or submit to those doctrines. When it comes to submitting to God's government, we dare not vainly compare ourselves one to another (II Corinthians 10:12).

Laziness and fear are the greatest challenges to love. When Protestant theologians disparage "works," connecting them to salvation rather than sanctification and growth, they encourage spiritual laziness. If we are lazy, we might still be saved, but we will have built nothing to fulfill God's purpose in us. If we refuse to work hard at character building, the principle of entropy will turn our efforts into a state of disorganization. If we make no effort to overcome, the principle of inertia will keep us going in the same way we have allowed ourselves to drift. An irrational fear of loss prevents the development of agape love within us—we fear that keeping God's commandments will cause us to lose something valuable. Like a musician who practices everyday, by continual effort at commandment keeping, we will soon develop feelings of confidence by knowing what we are doing is right (I John 3:17-19; John 15:9-10).