Why

I was talking to a friend of mine this morning.  She told me that she had fell and hurt herself.  As the conversation continued, I found out that her significant other offered to get up and shovel the snow out from around her car so she could go to work. She was adamant that she didn’t need him to take care of her. She was more than capable of taking care of herself. Of this, I have no doubt but that’s not the point is it?

God made each of us with different abilities and attributes.  I truly believe that God made men a little stronger (on the average) and, more importantly, we desire to take care of the people we care about in that physical way.  If you buy my supposition, then the question is why argue?

I would hate to tell my wife that she couldn’t do something because I said so. I’d guess that there is a high likelihood that she’d do it anyway to show me she could.  However, there are many things she’d defer to me as her husband and, conversely, many things I’ll gladly defer to her (for example, she buys and wraps most of the presents).  After 39 years of marriage, we’ve come to understand which tasks we can do and which tasks we dread doing.

But I’m going down the gender rabbit hole and that’s not my intent.  My real question is why do  we do things we know (or should know) we shouldn’t or would be better done by someone else?  Have you ever done something that you knew, knew, before you did it that you shouldn’t do it or am I the only one?

And what about those less obvious things like focusing on your own prideful wants instead of God. 

“When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him.” - John 13:12-16 ESV

There are so many things that my human nature wants me to believe is the right thing to do that I know (or more likely should know after the fact) are just the opposite. 

“If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory. Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. On account of these the wrath of God is coming. In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth. Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him.” - Colossians 3:1-17

Listen to what God and the Bible tells you to do and don’t listen to your selfish self.  He/she will trip you up every time and drop you on your butt.