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Monday, November 7, 2011

"I Know That Man Is Nothing"

“It came to pass that it was for the space of many hours before Moses did again receive his natural strength like unto man; and he said unto himself: Now, for this cause I know that man is nothing, which thing I never had supposed” (Moses 1:10).
How did Moses describe himself as compared to God?

Moses had just seen all of God's creations, and his recognition of the nothingness of man has, I think, so much to do with the 'nothingness' of human cares and concerns.  We see now darkly, as through a glass, preoccupied by the natural man and his "needs" but if we could, as Moses did, see the whole of God's creations, then we would realize that mortality is just a small blip on the long timeline of eternity, and that the things we are concerned with here are completely meaningless.  

So what does this have to do with being honest with myself about a pornography addiction? Well, if I am honest with myself then my addiction is largely about two things. 1) My desire to control something in my life, particularly my desire to control my physical needs.  Its the same reason I don't like someone to tell me what to eat (is it?). And 2) my desire to avoid pain ( or stress or disappointment).


And if I am honest with myself, these are concerns of the natural man, the natural man that Moses has said is "nothing."  So when I am preoccupied by the concerns of the natural man, I am preoccupied with a lie from Satan (Why do we capitalize his name?) that natural man's desires are the most important thing in the world.

So, if I can be humble enough to acknowledge that the natural man tendencies that I am susceptible to are not as important as Satan would have me think, then this is a first step in learning to control my own body.

...Control...


Interesting that in seeking something to control in my life I have instead largely lost control of a portion of myself.

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