A few months back I confessed it's still about the 'likes'. What I didn't mention in that post was that right after I realized that I was the one that needed to change (not so much my son) it occurred to me: Why don't I just give the same advice to myself which I so easily give to others?
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I could probably give myself a pretty good talkin' to. It would include something about my true identity (son of God), something else about how flimsy 'likes' and 'favorites' are (compared to the sturdiness or face-to-face interaction), etc...
I know the truth. I know that 'likes' and 'favorites' and 'plus ones' are just the fairy dust of the online world. I'm not sure why I have given them so much power or any power for that matter.
I wish it was just as simple as listening to my own advice, but it's not for a couple of reasons.
Change in others is easier to imagine than change in myself. The plank in my eye prevents me from seeing things properly. It functions as a lens that makes it easier to see the faults in others than in myself. Thus prescriptions for others comes easy, taking the medicine myself, not so much.
Giving advice is cheap, changing habits is expensive. Words are a dime a dozen. Cliches and quips fall out of our mouths with the greatest of ease. I've got more advice for others than I know what to do with. Might need to build me a barn to store it all. The words are the easy part. Changing my own patterns of behavior? That's another story altogether.
Knowing what's right and doing it are two different things. There is quite a distance between knowing what's right and doing it. Moral scandals involving Christian leaders serve as Exhibit A. Knowing the truth isn't the problem, applying it in many and varied circumstances is.
If there is anything that I have learned about the connections between beliefs and behaviors it is that we behave how we believe. Thus if we are not behaving in the right way there is still something that needs to developed or debunked in our thinking.
- If it's a half-truth that we are hanging onto, our thinking needs to develop into the whole truth
- If it's a lie we are believing, it needs to be debunked and replaced with new true thinking.
And when it's all said and done there is still one person who needs my sage advice more than anyone else on earth.
Me.