In a previous blog (Friday, October 8th) I wrote that basing your identity on anything other than God is considered a sin and can hurt you. In Tim Keller's book The Reason for God, he writes about other "god substitutes" and what can happen when we base on identity on them. Here are some examples.
If you center your life and identity on:
-your spouse or partner, you will be emotionally dependent, jealous, and controlling. The other person's problems will be overwhelming to you
-your family and children, you will try to live your life through your children until they resent you or have no self of their own. At worst, you may abuse them when they displease you
-your work and career, you will be a driven workaholic and a boring, shallow person. At worst you will lose family and friends and, if your career goes poorly, develop deep depression
-money and possessions, you'll be eaten up by worry or jealousy about money. You'll be willing to do unethical things to maintain your lifestyle, which will eventually blow up your life
-pleasure, gratification, and comfort, you will find yourself getting addicted to something. You will become chained to the "escape strategies" by which you avoid the hardness of life
-relationships and approval, you will be constantly overly hurt by criticism and thus always losing friends. You will fear confronting others and therefore will be a useless friend
-a "noble cause," you will divide the world into "good" and "bad" and demonize your opponents. Ironically, you will be controlled by your enemies. Without them, you have no purpose
-religion and morality, you will, if you are living up to your moral standards, be proud, self-righteous, and cruel. If you don't live up to your standards, your guilt will be utterly devastating
~November 3rd~Today I am so thankful for my car. We ran all over town and I definitely would not want to do it by walking or city transportation. Granted city transportation is awesome if you don't have any other options but it's not quick and efficient. The cold weather and pretty soon the ice and snow also make me very thankful for the transportation.
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