Elul 8 :: Change of Focus

Wow. How often have I been in a situation, not of my own choosing, and the words "It's not fair!" spring to my lips?

So here are some challenging thoughts gleaned from today's Elul devotional, courtesy of Biblical Lifestyle Center:

1. Words like ‘fair’ and ‘right’ are just the nonsensical buzzwords of irreverent, unhappy, little men with grossly exaggerated ideas of their own importance.
2. An angry heart is self-centered, petty, and weak.

Being a person with an over-developed sense of "right and wrong", I have had to consciously learn over the years to give up my "right to be right" and figure out the deeper truth I was supposed to learn from the situation. Not to say that it's easy, it never is. But once you grasp the concept of dying to "Self", you become more attuned to discovering that life is not always fair because we are not the center of anything, except our own little egos. *gulp*  Guilty as charged.

So, what did I learn from today's example of Cain and his anger regarding his unaccepted "sacrifice"? That I cannot maintain an attitude of love, reverence, and devotion to the God I claim to follow while "at the same time entertain strong opinions that something which has happened to [me] was ‘not right’,  ‘not fair’, or ‘not deserved." Does that mean, conversely, that I did deserve those things to happen to me? No, I don't think it means that at all. Stuff happens. All the time. To everyone. That's how it is in this fallen world. To have the mindset that "I didn't deserve this" would seem to imply that, somewhere deep inside, we also secretly harbor the notion that someone else deserved it... 

I'm just going to chew on that for awhile.