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Life is tough. There’s pressure on every side of us, threatening to crush us under it’s weight of influence. Pressure to succeed, pressure to fit in and conform. And deep down inside no matter how stubborn we may be, there is a part of us that really wants to give in to the power of this pressure. I know I’ve said it before, we’re all longing for love and acceptance.

In his book Mere Christianity C. S. Lewis talks about what evil actually is, and I love his ideas. He says that evil is the pursuit of good in the wrong way. He goes on to say that no one does evil for evil’s sake. He points out that a rapist, though committing a most foul evil, is seeking pleasure even if it is in a twisted and corrupt way. It’s really interesting. Somewhere along the line our evil derives from an illusion of attaining good.

Think about this. Cain and Abel were the first brothers on earth. One was a farmer the other was a shepherd. Both gave gifts to God but Cain’s wasn’t accepted and in a fit of anger killed Abel, his brother. I’ve really gotten into trying to see things from other people’s perspectives. Why did Cain kill his brother? What was going through his head? I think that he gave in to the pressure of an illusion. Here he was feeling rejected, alone and unworthy and I think that in a moment of weakness he saw something that wasn’t there. Maybe he thought that if Abel wasn’t there His problem of feeling inferior would disappear with Abel. I mean there wasn’t anything wrong with wanting to feel accepted by God. It’s a good thing to want to be accepted, but he (like many of us) went about it in the utmost wrong of ways.

Isn’t this the exact same thing that we do everyday? I mean maybe we don’t go out and literally kill each other, but haven’t we all at one point or another cut someone down to look better to a third party? And it’s not just about our relationships with one another, but its about small things that we do when we think that no one is looking. We all have something we’re struggling with. And so many of us are striving after something good, a feeling of acceptance, a place of belonging, a friend to count on, an escape from our problems… There is a lot of pressure out there pushing us to submit to their ways of attaining these things, but I’m here to tell you there is a better way.

Jesus didn’t come to create more pressure in the world. He came to give you a way out of it. I know there are a lot of preconceived notions that come along with Jesus’ name, another entire list of pressures, ideas of conformity and rules. But they’re all man made, after the fact. You want to know why this world hurts so much? Because it’s broken, because we’re broken. Things go wrong and a lot of times we go wrong. Realizing this is half the battle. The other half? It’s following Jesus in putting it all back together…

I don’t know what pressures you are under. I don’t know what you are struggling with. But I do know that you’re not alone. You are loved and accepted just the way you are. Even after Adam and Eve bought into the illusion Satan was peddling, God called out to them. It was an invitation to run back into His arms. He’s calling you. Will you hide in your shame? Or will you run back into your loving Father’s arms to be embraced by the one that created you?

Just Sayins All…

Rusty