[NOTE: This guest blog post is a response to my podcast “Cognitive Dissonance”]
A thought on cognitive dissonance, and the anger people have at being confronted
with truth - even truth you agree
with.
One of the key teachings of the church I grew up in was that
the sin of Adam and Eve eating the fruit of the tree of Knowledge of good and
evil was disobedience. Very little attention, if any, is placed on the effect
of the fruit itself, or the doubt in Eve's mind about God being on her side
leading up to taking the fruit.
However in my walk back to understanding God's love I found
that there is a profound effect of fear that the fruit of needing certitude of
good vs evil has on one’s life. It is a shame-based fear that envelopes us
when we see ourselves in the wrong. And
we instinctively take measures to protect.
Adam and Eve covered themselves and hid. We continue to cover ourselves and hide from
each other even when we know our errors.
Often we embrace the certitude of claiming Christ’s name and believing
He is God to ensure we are in the “Good” camp, but we do not give up the false
security of the fruit of the Tree of Death. We remain self-protective rather
than embracing Christ's way of vulnerable self-sacrificing service, and placing
our certitude in Him rather than ourselves getting the right understanding and
right doing and right saying that will earn the favor of God.
When this happens we often look good on the outside but
continue to rot on the inside. And any
truth that confronts our beliefs will be met with anger or defense, not because
it is wrong but because if we realize we can be wrong in one area of our life
it shakes the foundation of our salvation, which is a right understanding, and
doing Christianity rather than Christ Himself.
I truly appreciate your love and the messages you
speak. Many must die to self-protection
and embrace Christ-protection to hear the truth. It is a painful process to die to
self-protection and self-certainty; the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge of Good
vs Evil.
When we claim this as Adam and Eve's sin and don't recognize
it as fruit we continue to eat of it ourselves we deny it's deadly effects in
our lives today.
It is difficult, if not impossible, to eat of it and embrace
the self-sacrificing service of love Christ made us for and died to regain for
us.
-Laura Anaya
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