{"id":1441,"date":"2020-05-30T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-30T10:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2020-05-30T07:30:22","modified_gmt":"2020-05-30T12:30:22","slug":"pandoras-jar","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=1441","title":{"rendered":"Pandora’s Jar"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\u201cWe now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.\u201d 2 Corinthians 4:7 New Living Translation<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I came to Christianity as a young adult, and the first church I went to with any regularity was the one my parents attended. A woman who lived two doors up the street from my parents also went to church there. As far as I know, Sister Dell had been in church her entire life. Certainly, she was part of the old guard in that congregation. I hadn’t been a very good girl prior to my conversion, and one Sunday Sister Dell opined to me that once we’ve made a mess of our lives\u2014the implication being as I had done\u2014the Lord just had to pick up the pieces and make the best of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I’m not sure what Sister Dell’s motive was for saying that to me. There could’ve been any number of reasons behind such a mean-spirited remark, including taking a shot at my mom, who was never shy about challenging the old ways of doing things. But whatever this woman’s reason was and despite her standing as a pillar in that particular congregation, I knew, even in the moment, that she was dead wrong. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following my acceptance of Christ as my savior, I had immersed myself in the gospel accounts and Paul’s writings, which had convinced me that no person born into this planet is righteous. Not one. The playing field is completely level in that regard. Very early in my life as a Christian, I came to the belief that my faith in Jesus’s crucifixion and resurrection had renewed me. I didn’t understand it, really, but I believed I had a fresh start. My gospel was\u2014still is\u2014that I became someone altogether new and everything in the past was bygones. There wasn’t going to be any picking up pieces and trying to make the best of them. The past was dead, or at least I was dead to it, and anything was possible.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet my biggest struggle post-conversion remained having to contend with myself. With my appetites and habits, my deep-rooted fears and flaws. Oftentimes, I fell short\u2014very short\u2014of my seemingly reasonable expectations of myself. But I wasn’t alone in this struggle. I found that Paul, great influencer that he was, battled the same dynamic and wrote about it. \u201cI don\u2019t really understand myself,\u201d Paul wrote, \u201cfor I want to do what is right, but I don\u2019t do it. Instead, I do what I hate…And I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. I want to do what is right, but I can\u2019t. I want to do what is good, but I don\u2019t. I don\u2019t want to do what is wrong, but I do it anyway.\u201d (Romans 7:15, 18-19 NLT)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There\u2019s a story in Greek mythology commonly known as Pandora\u2019s Box that attempts to explain how bad things came into the world. (We all know\u2014instinctively\u2014that the world isn\u2019t as it ought to be.) In the myth, Pandora is entrusted with a jar that she’s told not to open. But the girl is curious and opens it anyway, releasing into the world sickness and death and all manner of evil. Pandora closes the jar quickly, but not quickly enough. Only Hope remains inside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Who can deny that there’s evil in the world? No one can. But it didn’t fly out of Pandora’s jar. It didn’t fly out of the Garden of Eden either. It was carried out of paradise by Adam, our father, and Eve, our mother. And to this day, we carry wickedness like a virus, infecting our worlds with it to one degree or another. We don’t want to, but we do. We just can’t help ourselves. Each of us is a vessel, not by choice but by birth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Religion tries to cover our unruliness, to atone for it with rituals and ever more rules. But Paul was very clear in his letter to the believers in Rome. No religion exists that can fix us. Applying rules and rituals to our humanity is like putting perfume on a corpse. It’s nasty, and it doesn’t make the situation better. In fact, it makes it worse.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The thing I love the most about the gospel its that it doesn’t promise to make me a better version of myself. It promises a different me, whole and flawless. That promise is a beacon I’ve walked toward for most of my life. When I stumble, my hope in it picks me up and gets me going again. Peter urged Christians to \u201cworship Christ as Lord of your life. And if someone asks about your hope as a believer, always be ready to explain it.\u201d (1 Peter 3:15 NLT) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I don’t yet comprehend what I’ll become\u2014what I am even now becoming. But I believe that by the time I see Jesus, I will be like Him, because I’ll see Him as He is. (1 John 3:2) In a crowning touch, God will give me a new name written on a white stone. (Revelation 2:17) And absolutely no one\u2014except the Lord and me\u2014will know how much that treasured new identity means to me and what we went through to obtain it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\u201cWe now have this light shining in our hearts, but we ourselves are like fragile clay jars containing this great treasure. This makes it clear that our great power is from God, not from ourselves.\u201d 2 Corinthians 4:7 New Living … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[20],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8Mo02-nf","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":958,"url":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=958","url_meta":{"origin":1441,"position":0},"title":"Own It","author":"lsimonds","date":"December 20, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201cFor the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God.\u201d 1 Corinthians 1:18 I used to think it sounded \u201cbetter\u201d when someone said they were an agnostic instead of an atheist. Agnosticism seemed less\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2017"","block_context":{"text":"2017","link":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?cat=17"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":81,"url":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=81","url_meta":{"origin":1441,"position":1},"title":"What Will Be","author":"lsimonds","date":"January 1, 2004","format":false,"excerpt":"\u201c\u2026the eyes of your understanding being enlightened; that you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the riches of the glory of His inheritance in the saints,\u2026\u2026which is His body, the fullness of Him who fills all in all.\u201d Ephesians 1:18, 23 Some while ago I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2004"","block_context":{"text":"2004","link":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?cat=5"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":966,"url":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=966","url_meta":{"origin":1441,"position":2},"title":"The World According to…","author":"lsimonds","date":"February 25, 2018","format":false,"excerpt":"There's a saying about being in a room that's so small you have to step outside to change your mind. 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That\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "2020"","block_context":{"text":"2020","link":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?cat=20"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":86,"url":"https:\/\/melissakaysimonds.com\/?p=86","url_meta":{"origin":1441,"position":4},"title":"Pro-Christ","author":"lsimonds","date":"February 1, 2003","format":false,"excerpt":"And they said, \u201cIs not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How is it then that He says, \u2018I have come down from heaven\u2019?\u201d John 6:42 Fasten your seat belts. This month is my most radical column to date. 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