Danielle Hawkins: Thought on A Severe Mercy

 In our last class, an expert from A Severe Mercy was read and we discussed the literary analogy of the trinity. One quote (I'm not sure if it's exactly what it says, but its the gist of it)stuck out to me and I want to dump my thoughts out and see if anyone else has anything to say about it. 

We all have something of God in us (good and bad people), God's Spirit

There are two parts of this quote, one I can agree with and the other I do not. 

The first is that we all have something of God in us, I believe as humans we are created in the image and likeness of God, therefore there is a part of us that is created to worship and follow Him. Worship means to have reverence and adoration towards something. All people worship something. They spend their time and energy towards a thing, a person, or anything else that a person could put their time and energy towards.  This shows me that we have a this inherit desire to fall before and place our time and energy towards it. The "it" changes for everyone, even devout followers of God. I believe that we had a fullness of relationship with God at the beginning of creation, but it was broken and we now fall short and fall in to the desires of our flesh. I see that we all have a commonality in having the desire to adore and have reverence towards anything and it makes me think that there at one time was a common desire of something to worship, i.e. the thing that created us (at least this is what I believe to be true). Many verses in the Bible point to the idea that we are created by God in order to worship Him. One example is “worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honor and power, for you created all things, and by your will they existed and were created” -Revelation 4:11 ESV. What do other people think of this? 


The other thing about this quote, is one that I do not agree with, at least for me personally. It talks about good and bad people having this Spirit in them. At first glance when see the word good and bad I think of a division. In my personal view on people it is not good for me to see people as good or bad because I start to hate the person and have judgments towards them. I become self-righteous and see my self as better. This is a dangerous game for me and I will feel bitter towards people. In Ephesians 6:12 it says "for our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms" (ESV). When I start viewing people as the evil thing and not their actions I deviate from my calling to love people. Not all people are easy to love, but everyone is worthy of love. Every person has dignity and value and I want to see them from that view and not that they are good or evil based on their actions. 



Does anyone have any thoughts about this quote?? 


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