Human Nature: The Weaknesses We Detest In Others

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.

Romans 7:21

We all piled into our small boat for a Fourth of July family outing. As we navigated through a narrow, tropical canal, another boat—a bigger boat—approached from the other direction. Isn’t it interesting that no matter how big your boat, there is always someone with a bigger one?

I watched the captain of this seaworthy ship standing proudly erect in the center of his bow, hands clasped behind his back. His family scurried around to make sure our boats passed safely in the canal. But the icy captain stood sternly at the bow—cool, calm, and collected.

As our boats closed on each other, I was sure I detected the trace of a snobbish sneer on his face. Yes, there it is again! He is glaring smugly down on us because he has a bigger boat. What haughtiness, sheer arrogance, I thought to myself. I could care less.

The sin of pride is a sin of comparison, comparing our strength to another’s weakness. For most of us, our greatest strengths are usually also our greatest weaknesses.

I stewed over this boater’s self-importance. Sure, I could have owned a bigger boat, but my restrained lifestyle was a strength of mine. Then it hit me hard. It was not his pride that was at issue with Christ; it was mine. I was the proud fool.

The first choice of my human nature was to charge him with pride, of comparing his strength (his big boat) to my weakness (my little boat). But it was me that was guilty of pride, of comparing my strength (my restrained lifestyle) with his weakness (his consumptive lifestyle).

An Axiom to Live By

Any time our ire rises at the sin of someone else, a sin is revealed in us, often the same sin. We detest in others the weaknesses and sins we have not yet sorted out in ourselves.

The nature of our human nature is to remember the positive things about ourselves and note all the negative things about the other person. We remember our strengths and note their weaknesses—not always, but often.

When we assume ourselves to be a good person at the level of our basic human nature, we set ourselves up for a fall. “There is no one righteous, not even one” (Romans 3:10). Each of us is capable of committing any particular sin at any particular time.

The best defense we have is to acknowledge our basic human nature—not good but sinful—and leave a sentinel posted at the gate to our mind. “Take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ” (2 Corinthians 10:5). Then we will not be caught unaware by the soft sell of sin’s seductions at the level of our basic human nature.

Man is capable of doing great good, but always by the grace of God and always with the capacity to do evil right there with him.

Will we ever attain a complete victory over the nature of our human nature? Will we ever be free from the shackles of our own inclination to sin? The answer is no, not in this life. We must live with this ambiguity: “When I want to do good, evil is right there with me” (Romans 7:21).

I SURRENDER

Dear God, now that I belong to You, let me live my life by the Spirit. Help me to become unconvinced of my own goodness at the level of my basic human nature. I see how the sins I hate in others are often my own. I surrender my sinful nature to You. Help me to overcome the ambiguity within me. Amen.