Today I had quite a bad experience.
The thing is, normally I would say that loving life is a very good thing. It makes me glad to be here and with this joy I can bear the challenges of life much better and don't fall victim to any mental distress. Also, loving life connects me to other people, it's not like I become too happy through it, in a selfish sense. I also find that christian concerns like our concern about abortion and euthanasia fit into a larger scheme of our faith being a faith and a celebration of life, not a celebration of death. Jesus Himself said He would give us life as His gift to us.
But today someone gave me this bible verse:
English Standard Version (©2001)
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
I got really upset when I read that. It just seemed to say, God hates me being happy. That I must always be miserable and have only God as my joy. I can't bear this, it's unfair, and it's pointless. I can get the idea that I must love God MORE than anything or anyone else, even than my family. But not to be allowed to love life, that's just creepy.
There was another biblical idea that in the past gave me similar problems, that we are supposed not to love the world. I eventually resolved this by discerning this sentence, that it means we shall not love the world of sin, yet that we can safely love the world of nature, the world of man (to an extent), the cosmos in general, our place.
So I think this verse could work the same way. We shall hate the "life" of sin. Our flesh with the law of death in it that hinders us to fully bloom spiritually.
I can't believe Jesus would really ask us to hate our lives, because that only leads to needless misery.
How do you see this scripture? How do you think about loving life?
I must add that loving life has been a literal life saver for me many times. It gave me peace. And I know life has many difficult things in it, like that we contract illness, that we age. But still I love life, it has poetry in it and meaning, and I believe God helps us in it. It's a masterpiece of God, both the black and the colored sides of it.
The thing is, normally I would say that loving life is a very good thing. It makes me glad to be here and with this joy I can bear the challenges of life much better and don't fall victim to any mental distress. Also, loving life connects me to other people, it's not like I become too happy through it, in a selfish sense. I also find that christian concerns like our concern about abortion and euthanasia fit into a larger scheme of our faith being a faith and a celebration of life, not a celebration of death. Jesus Himself said He would give us life as His gift to us.
But today someone gave me this bible verse:
English Standard Version (©2001)
Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.
I got really upset when I read that. It just seemed to say, God hates me being happy. That I must always be miserable and have only God as my joy. I can't bear this, it's unfair, and it's pointless. I can get the idea that I must love God MORE than anything or anyone else, even than my family. But not to be allowed to love life, that's just creepy.
There was another biblical idea that in the past gave me similar problems, that we are supposed not to love the world. I eventually resolved this by discerning this sentence, that it means we shall not love the world of sin, yet that we can safely love the world of nature, the world of man (to an extent), the cosmos in general, our place.
So I think this verse could work the same way. We shall hate the "life" of sin. Our flesh with the law of death in it that hinders us to fully bloom spiritually.
I can't believe Jesus would really ask us to hate our lives, because that only leads to needless misery.
How do you see this scripture? How do you think about loving life?
I must add that loving life has been a literal life saver for me many times. It gave me peace. And I know life has many difficult things in it, like that we contract illness, that we age. But still I love life, it has poetry in it and meaning, and I believe God helps us in it. It's a masterpiece of God, both the black and the colored sides of it.