Raw Material

Image courtesy of John A. Adam.

"When a man who has been perverted from his youth and taught that cruelty is the right thing, does some tiny little kindness, or refrains from some cruelty that he might have committed,...he may, in God's eyes, be doing more than you and I would do if we gave up life itself for a friend.

"It is as well to put this the other way round. Some of us who seem quite nice people may, in fact, have made so little use of a good heredity and a good upbringing that we are really worse than those whom we regard as fiends...That is why Christians are told not to judge. We see only the results which a man's choices make out of his raw material. But God does not judge him on the raw material at all, but on what he has done with it."

C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity (in the chapter titled Morality and Psychoanalysis)

Upon reading these words, my first instinct is to think of some of the people I don't like very much and think of all the things that could have gone wrong in their upbringing to make them the way they are. I then congratulate myself for thus "excusing" them of their behavior. At the same time, if I can't seem to find a "reason" for their behavior, the temptation is to say, "Well, why couldn't they have turned out nicer/kinder/smarter/more patient/more loving?" (And of course, there's the inaudible "like me" at the end of that rhetorical question.)

The bottom line of course, is that not only does God judge what each individual has done with his raw material, but God is the only one who knows exactly what that raw material is. Example: A pastor's daughter who attends church, is involved in various ministries, has only Christian friends, is pursuing a Biblical education, and aspires to be a missionary may be viewed as someone who should be kinder than the average human being. Men enjoy her company, but as soon as she senses a relationship getting serious, she breaks it off abruptly. God is the only one who sees that it takes great courage for her to spend time in the company of men at all because she was molested.

Heck - I don't even know what my raw material is! I think I do, sometimes, but I learn new things about myself constantly, and I have no reason to suppose I am finished.

Now that I think about it, often times I don't even know what I'm doing with my raw material, whatever it is. I am not aware of my own output. I do not hear the things I say. I do not think how I could better use my time.

In any case, I want to return to a point I brought up earlier - that I try to find problems in peoples' past that will "excuse" them of their current behavior. First of all, just because someone is predisposed to a certain sin does not forgive them from it. Of ten sins, one man may struggle with one in particular and may find it easy to avoid the others. Another man may not struggle with that particular sin but has a difficult time with the others.

Second, it is not me who "excuses" behavior. God is the only one who can forgive sins. I can only forgive wrongs done against me. I can only love people. I do not need to find reasons to put them in my good graces - I only need to do it. The gossip and curiosity in me wants to know all the dirty problems people have gone through or are going through. There is no reason for me to know unless the person has another reason for sharing. My responsibility is only to love.

I'll leave you with this thought: "raw material" changes, for better or for worse. You can only do the best with what you have to work with, but "what you have to work with" will grow or diminish in time depending on the small choices you make every single day. So don't feel sorry for yourself for your lack of "raw material" - just keep building it up!