This one is sad.
The parents defended their son’s decision, saying he was “an intelligent young man of sound mind” who was “not prepared to live what he felt was a second-class existence”.
It doesn’t always matter whether or not we’re intelligent or of sound mind.
The article titles him as a “paralyzed rugby player”.
Now if, when you asked him who he was, he would say, “I am a rugby player,” then what choice did he have once he lost his body? For a rugby player, being paralyzed is a second class existence.
But if he had said, “I’m a man, created by God to serve him,” would he have had another choice? Being still a man, still created by God, and still having the opportunity to serve him, would he still consider his existence before God to be ‘second-class?’
If we don’t actively protect our own perception of our identity, we will lose it. It will be swallowed up by the things we do and the things we care about. It will be corroded and gobbled away until we’re left as the meagre sum of our experiences.
Every hour I program, I understand myself more as computer programmer and less as what I was before.
I guess I’m even a little scared, because so much of how I see myself is tied up with my mind. Were I to lose that, would I have the strength to resist saying “I have lost everything.” ?
It makes me think of the oft-cited ‘humility lesson’: “Do not think of yourself more highly [or lowly] than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment…” (Romans 12:3). Somehow this strikes me as one of the greatest challenges in life: to regard oneself objectively and truthfully. The only way I can get past the mess of my emotions, experiences and cultural worldview to see myself as I really am is, ironically, to look not at myself but at my creator. So then how do people do it who do not acknowledge a creator?
You’re absolutely correct.
[Knowing who we are before God] = humility.
What makes the job so much more difficult is that the devil plants lies in our lives, lies about who we are and what we are worth. Most often he does this when we’re down and vulnerable.
God gives us the ability to root out and discard these lies but we still have to get on our knees and do it.
I’m afraid the wages of sin is death in the truest sense.