Posted on by Abe Austin

Blasphemous Anger Fantasies

A Smug Fantasy)

One of the most common fantasies is imagining someone who has upset us finally having to eat crow and admit that we were right all along. Here are the two most common forms of this fantasy:

  1. Picturing those that have wronged us having negative consequences for their own flaws. The very qualities that they used to hurt us end up hurting themselves, and it is so profound of an experience that they realize their entire life philosophy was wrong.
  2. Picturing those that doubted us watching on as we succeed in every measure where they thought we would fail. They wonder how they could have been so wrong in gauging our worth and they regret the missed opportunity to be a part of our success.

Both forms of the fantasy include the same central component of enjoyment at the groveling penitence of those that have wronged us. I have always felt intuitively that there is something wrong with entertaining this sort of fantasy. It’s too smug, too self-congratulatory, and too judgmental to be a good thing.

As I’ve thought about it further, I’ve realized there is something even deeper amiss with it, something about it that violates a fundamental commandment. It is, in fact, blasphemous.

Making Oneself God)

I’ve come to realize that this fantasy is all about making myself a god over the people that wronged me. Common elements in the fantasy are that the person who committed the offense:

  1. Comes to a recognition of his sin.
  2. Approaches me to ask forgiveness.
  3. Acknowledges that my philosophy and intentions are the correct ones.
  4. Submits unquestioningly to my perceptions of reality from that point on.

This goes far beyond just wanting to prove myself right. This is me wanting to be the very identity of rightness, the deliverer of its word, the voice of truth that the wrong-minded must surrender to. This is trying to claim godhood for myself, and ironically, I show what an unworthy and petty God I would be in the way that I imagine it.

These fantasies are more than unwise, they’re downright dangerous. They seduce us into a state of self-idolatry, which shuts ourselves off from being able to connect with the real God. To overcome the toxic effect of these fantasies we must surrender judgment and justice for those that have wronged us to God, and God alone.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Evolving Your Beliefs- Question

We come to God to be refashioned by Him. He promises us “A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you” (Ezekiel 36:26). I think most of us have a pretty basic expectation of how this refashioning is going to go. He’s going to take away our craving for sin, make our hearts kinder, and give us a deeper appreciation for the sacred. And at first, this might be exactly how things proceed.

At some point, though, there usually come changes that are unexpected. You see, each of us is an imperfect mortal, and invariably have misconceptions about God. At some point He is going to try and correct those, to show us who He is more truly. Beautiful as these moments are, they can also be disconcerting. We can have strong, emotional ties to our misconceptions, and letting go of them can feel like heresy.

Even more troubling, sometimes people struggle to let go of their misconceptions of God without letting go of Him entirely. They recognize a legitimate flaw in their previous belief system, but let go of the belief instead of the flaw.

With this study I would like to explore how we can safely navigate doubt, questions, and evolving perspectives. Have you experienced any of these in your life? Did you ever find it difficult to separate misguided periphery from the actual core of the gospel? In what ways did your spiritual life change after being enlightened?