It seems
that every sin—no matter against a brother or sister, or even against one’s self, all ultimately against God—holds within itself some idolatrous hunger for control, contentment, and exploitation of others to esteem self. All three
endeavors are bound together: one child only exploits another to secure self-contentment and one’s contentment consistently provokes an exertion to control such
contentment as to not loose it, for eternal contentment is the desire of every
soul.
But it is
in our strain to control that we become slaves; it is in experiencing what we
thought would bring contentment that we are left discontent and ashamed, and it
is in our striving to lessen another that they become our greatest fear. Our own handlings of our soul leave us
in bondage, shame, and fear.
But it is
the Father that frees us from bondage,
the Spirit that heals us from shame,
and the Son that teaches us to love over fear.
We feel
peace instead of strain, we know true joy instead of emptiness, and we desire
love instead of malice only by living in the faith that He is the One in control, He is our only satisfaction, and that we are all His children loved to death so that we may become holy as He is.
