Seeds of Propensity, Dogs of War

Posted by Eric at 1:05 AM

EVERYONE is born in sin. Sin being evil, everyone is inherently evil... that is to say, everyone has that "Seed of Propensity" planted in the soil of his heart. But to clarify "evil" : Killing unborn children is evil. Murdering 6 million Jews is evil, but so is lying. So is petty theft. So is selfishness. ALL sin is evil in God's eyes, which is why God felt it necessary to take on mortal flesh and perform what no human could...

Tendencies for good do lie in every human heart, but so too are tendencies for evil.

An old Indian warrior once related to a prairie preacher that inside him lived two dogs constantly at war with each other; one was light, the other dark. Curious, the preacher asked which one was winning. The old man replied, "The one I feed the most."

The same is true of us. We may be good at heart, by man's standard... we may feed, in the sight of men, the dog which represents our tendencies for good. But the other dog is still there, unvanquished.

Until Christ returns and redeems our bodies we will live in a perpetual state of war with the other dog.











[Originally published as a comment at Shared Thoughts...]

   

3 Comments:

1. Anonymous said...
   July 10, 2008 at 12:28 PM  
   A fairly generic post EL. The light/dark dog story was cute, but I think you've used it before. People don't have just two sides. In our heads are all sorts of motivations and feelings that mush and slither around. Sometimes for noble reasons, sometimes for despicable reasons we feed different emotions. Anger, vengeance, passion, hatred, righteousness, condemnation, if there were only black and white, it'd be easy to separate which side these emotions go to, but there aren't just two dogs. In each person are a whole pack of dogs. self interest, charity, empathy, righteousness, greed, anger, etc.
   
   I do agree though it matters which emotions and reasons you encourage.
   
   The other day I heard a great motivational quote. It came in the form of a question. "I enjoy being me. Do you?"
   Anonymous said...
   July 10, 2008 at 1:06 PM  
   A thought I meant to type but lost in the process of writing is that the biggest dog in most people's head is fear. Fear of change. Fear of death. Fear of god. Fear of ridicule. Fear of others who are different.
   
   The part of myself I try to encourage the most is joy. I know EL personally and I know that is not the dog he feeds the most.
   Anonymous said...
   July 10, 2008 at 3:31 PM  
   It appears that you feed the dog of judgementalism quite a bit and spend way too much time in that direction toward EL. I have yet to see where you praise him for anything. Try a little positive thoughts toward him and see if you don't even feel better about yourself. Have a good day and share a few good thoughts with EL. Mom2

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