Creating the World: God, The Devil, and Psychology

Every once in a while I wonder, why do we as humans have the psychological need to be evil?

Why does every batman need a joker?

Why does every North need a South?

The answer is simple: In Genesis 3 man and women fell to the Serpent. God had created paradise for his children to dwell in. All was taken care of: the only rule, never eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Man choose to worship himself over God.

Man kind has always been looking for something searching to create his own world like his/her father God had created theirs.  

In Genesis 4, Cain's decedent Tubal-Cain learned to forge with Iron and Bronze, Jubal created the Harp and Flute, and after the flood, Man created the tower of babel to reach the heavens.

As Human Beings we want to create. God's first command was "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it."

 I don't think this just applied to child-birth. I believe God meant for us to create as he had created, we were to love and take care of the earth, as God had loved and taken care of it. We were to multiply our thoughts, our actions, our inventions, are creative nature (and of course our people) and fill the earth all in honor and perfect harmony of our heavenly father.

Something happened though....

 Satan, a fallen angel the one who wants to be worshiped, deceived human beings. 

RULE #1 about Satan:
Satan cannot create, he can only corrupt and distract from God's holiness and creation.

Satan used man because man was formed in the image of God. Unlike angels, man has free will; the ability to create.
 If Satan could trick man into creating any idol that takes away from God's holiness, he had won because man the pivotal of God's creation, the closest representation of God in the universe, had abandoned him.

 

 Our Psychological need to create, isn't innately evil. What we name as Sin, often is just a distortion of characteristics of God.
 

Love is turned to Lust

Wellness is turned to Selfishness

Exploration, Questioning, and Curiosity  is turned to Doubt.

Peace and Security is turned to Worry and Chaos

and so on...

When the "Me" idol is the center of our hearts, Satan wins. We've glorified the Serpent. Because Satan cannot defeat God, Satan loves to see the closest thing to God fail and fall.  

When we choose to worship ourselves, the garden which God had planted and taken care of now becomes our responsibility. During my freshman semester of college, I had a professor who was all about nature and the environment. He inspired me to grow a garden. After he had brought in two Walmart bags full of fresh home grown tomatoes, I thought "Wow! if I did that I wouldn't need to go to the grocery store at all."

I began working that summer on my own garden. Day one was hard preparing the ground, I had to dig out several boulders and bring over the right kind of fertilizer for my garden. I tried to make my ground even but just couldn't figure it out. I planted my seeds and waited for the garden to grow. In the mean time I had gotten two summer jobs a night shift (11pm-7am) at a hotel and my day job (8am-3pm) doing maintenance work on the mountain bike trails in the northern part of the state.

 

Several weeks past, and I decided to let the night shift go. 

When I finally had enough time to take care of my garden, by mid July my garden had been burnt by the sun, eaten by deer, and over grown with weeds; destroyed by my own neglect.   

 Our desire to work is innately good. It's part of God's first command but when we choose to create our own world completely detached from God's goodness, we find enormous amounts of stress and worry. . 

Jesus summarizes what we should do in Mathew 7. "A wise man built his house upon the rock"

Thoughts from Jacob's Brother

One Bible story which always connected with my was the story of Jacob and Esau found in Genesis Chapter 25.

Basically in this story two brothers were born twins but Esau by literally a hair was born first. As the boys grew up they had a bit of sibling rivalry, which eventually lead to Jacob tricking Esau out of his blessing and his birthright. Esau was angry and wanted to kill Jacob, but Jacob fled and eventually was tricked into marrying another girl instead of the one his uncle had promised.

(please note this was cultural not intended sexism, kind of like how in American culture we usually date a girl for a few years before deciding to get married. Jacob didn't own her like cattle, he was simply spending the 7 years working for her uncle to know her, her lifestyle, her family, and her culture.) 

God met Jacob in the wilderness through a dream, where he had to wrestle with an angel. He fought with God all night long but when the sun came up, Jacob wounded and limping came out victorious. 

Later Jacob had heard his brother was on the move along with an army of 400 trained warriors. Jacob's initial reaction was to run but 

God told him to meet his brother. When they met his brother embraced him and welcomed him and was glad he had returned home. He explained the 400 warriors were there for Jacob and Esau's protection. 

And basically it was a happily ever after for the family unit.

Sometimes it's easy to picture yourself as Jacob, the lost prodigal who tricked and sneaked his way to the front but through all of it still was the chosen and blessed son, however often in my life I feel like Esau, Jacob's brother. 

In world of psychology there is a little thing called psychoanalysis. This means your unconscious thought processes determine key characteristics into your personal/biological development. Things you can't control are the things that control you and who you become. 

Being raised in a strong Christian home where my dad was a pastor, my mom was the closest thing on earth to a saint, and my brothers and sister were expected to be tangibly perfect, lets just say I was a shrub in a Redwood forest. 

If I was laying in a therapists office, I'd say things like "It all comes back to my childhood" and "I never got enough attention" but I don't think being raised in a "bad" home was the problem, my home was unusually good, I think it was the expectation to be perfect. 

I felt like I had to do a certain amount of tasks, or like in Spider-man 2, when he wanted to quit, the world needed him and would crash in a wreck without him. 

I observed how my brothers were given all kinds of gifts and special qualities. I felt like I couldn't ever measure up to what my dad, my family, my community, my church, wanted of me.  

I felt like Esau, Jacob's brother...

Like that's all I am, the brother of the chosen one, or like Pippin the Lord of the Rings series who's only purpose was to offer some comic relief and help Frodo get to Mordor. At times, the shadow my dad, brothers, church, and community left on me seams impossible to grow out of.

Here's where the story gets good...

Even though I feel like Esau's brother at times, the reality is God loved Esau. I know what all the fundamentalists are thinking "What?! God doesn't love Esau, God hated Esau, it says so in the Bible" 

 I don't think God hated Esau the person. I think God hated Esau the ideal. Those who walk in the ways of Esau, those who would trade God's way for them for a bowl of soup, those who lived years in bitterness and hatred, those who indulge themselves in lust, the ways of Esau I have hated. 

God loved Esau the person. Just because Jacob was blessed didn't mean Esau was cursed. God blessed Esau with plentiful wealth, God softened the heart of Esau and somewhere in there I believe Esau wrestled with that same angel because in the end he loved his brother and welcomed him home. 

All this to say, sometimes I feel like Esau, without a blessing without a birthright, my only significant is in the name of my brother, but when I'm walking with the Lord, as long as my heart humbly is in his presence. I can live in the blessing. The ways of Esau were bad, the ways of Jacob were good, but the way of the Lord Jesus Christ is best. And I chose to walk in the ways of the Lord.

-Wesley Wilson 

  

Eco- Map in Spiritual Development

Do you ever feel through logic and reason you've come to the cross yet the reality of spiritual nature, without physical substance, without weight/height/volume, is nearly unreachable?

The core of Christianity is simple;

1."In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" Gen. 1:1

2. "All man has sinned and fallen short of God's glory." Rom 3:23
 

3. "For God so loved the world he gave his one and only son so that whoever believes in him will not die but receive everlasting life." John 3:16
 

4."In the same way count yourselves dead to sin, but alive to God in Jesus Christ." Rom 6:11
 

5. "You will receive power when the holy spirit comes on you and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, Judea, Sumeria, and to the ends of the earth." Acts 1:8

Even though I believe these things in my head, trusting them completely with my heart has always posed a huge obsticle.

When I was a boy I admired the old women from Hayward Wesleyan Church, my childhood Christian community. 

With their consistent hand raising and early morning prayer committees, I witnessed them flex their spiritual mussels on a weekly basis thinking these like "They must be the spiritual equivalent of G.I. Joe or Rocky Bowbowa."

There are two types of spiritual mentors, those who are artists seeking emotion, meaning, and spiritual beauty in everything; and the spiritual scientist eager to preform numerous tests and techniques, accumulating data, and watching for "spiritual" results.

Though I've tried to force myself to be an artists, my mind leans toward scientific observation, and thus the as the artist Christians call it, doubt.

I love psychology and have an Associates Degree in Human Services from our local community college on the near by Ojibwe reservation. 

During my course of study we were instructed to create an Eco-Map. Basically it's a diagram that shows how the macro system effect the individual or family unit.

In a hurricane of stress and unexplained frustration, I did one on myself. I noticed how things such as Finances, Work, Community, Experiences, and Relationships has significantly impacted my development. 

My devotional habit resembles the turtle, "Slow and steady wins the race" As I was lingering through the book of Isaiah I came to chapter 46. Only the Lord knows what I'd do if my Bible wasn't a study Bible (For all those skeptics the notes really help unless you have a prestigious degree in Theology or speak fluent Greek and Hebrew)

When reading through the text depicting the false idols, I noticed a familiar tone which lead to an insightful conclusion, "Baal the god of Harvest, represent man's hard work" the same rang true about the list of 6 false gods each representing the aspects of my Eco-map (relationships/experiences/knowledge and education/career/community/accomplishment)

From that moment forward I decided enough is enough, if I am taking my faith seriously I need to understand my Theology with my Head to my Heart. From a psychological stand point words are meaningless until they a processed through our brains, interpreted, and then recognized by our emotions and personality. 

The same is true in my spiritual nature. I need to understand the word through my head, come to grips with my Theology cognitively and bring out the deeper and more profound mystery of my personal relationship with Jesus Christ.  

(Note for spiritual artists who are worried cognitive comprehension may lead to being a pharisee. Any relationship blossoms when one side eagerly pursues to understand the other, knowing their thoughts and watching as they change over time.)

-Wesley Wilson