The number one roadblock to morality

 I have a simple definition of the difference between a good person and a bad person:The difference is where one draws the line. I think all of us to some degree struggle with the same issues, honesty,anger and greed. We all stray from perfection when it comes to these 3 issues. By the way the definition of sin is to miss the mark, and we all miss the mark. None of us are 100 percent honest,100% self-less and act graciously towards others all of the time. The difference between the good person and the bad person is where do we draw the line between acceptable an unacceptable behavior.

Let's talk about anger first. We are all born very angry people. Just look at a child for instance. Childern are constantly angry. They are often violent, they scream alot and they often say very hurtful things towards other people when things  don't go their way. Luckily, we are taught not to act out our anger and the more mature we become the less often we act out in anger. Of course though there are some instances where we still react in anger. This is where you find the difference between a good and a bad person. How many situations do you find yourself in where you justify being angry? The higher the number the more likely that you have some serious anger issues going on. The next question is where do you drawn the line when it comes to acting on that anger. How many situations is it permissible to yell at someone? How many situations is it permissble to punch somebody? Or to shoot somebody? Or to destroy them and everything they own?The lower the number the healthier that person is morally.I would say almost all of us can think of 1 or 2 situations where shooting is acceptable. The first being where you are protecting yourself or family from death and the second being war. Some people would expand that list, they may justify shooting if the spouse is unfaithful and stop the list there. Others would keep going and say that if you merely insulted their mother that justifies shooting or if you got their sister pregnant or if you failed to pay a huge debt or you sold drugs in their territory or if politically you were a threat to their beliefs or if your religious beliefs differed from theirs.Think about your answers to these questions and examine whether or not you are at peace with your answers. I know that I am not 100% at peace with all of my answers.

The next issue I want to examine is greed. Again, this an innate feature that we have and are taught to curb from the day we are born. We have to be taught to share,we have to be taught not to want so much, we have to taught not to take from others, we even have to be taught that marital infideltiy is wrong because we instinctively want more and more.Once again I pose the question, how many situations do you find yourself in where greed is acceptable and how far are you willing to go to satisfy your greed? The further from God we are the higher the number is likely to be and the higher the severity of our actions will be. Let's be honest here, we all have acceptable levels of greed and I think it's important to acknowledge that. There are often times when a stranger will ask me for money and I have several dollars in my pocket and I will give him nothing or I will give him very little. This is greed. I call this acceptable greed and an acceptable action. It is acceptable for me to keep what I have or to share very little but for me it is unacceptable to steal from others or coerce others into giving to me. Here is another form of greed I have. I spend on average 6$ a week playing the lotto. THis does not affect me from paying my rent or helping to buy the groceries or from going out with my girlfriend on the weekends. My motivation for buying the tickets is greed and I am comfortable with this. However, if I were to drawn the line elsewhere I might be falling from God. IF I justified stealing from the grocery store so I could spend more money going to the movies or to help buy me a new car or to help buy more lotto tickets then this is an indication that I am falling from God's grace. Once again we must examine ourselfs and see if we are at peace with our levels of greed and how they interfere with other people's lives.

Now we get to the most important one of them all , honesty. THe most prevalent reason for dishonesty is an unwillingness to be acountable for our actions or our thoughts. THis is the one most likely to drive us away from God. THere is a reason why God commands us not to bear false witness. Because he knows of the snowball effect that can occur when one lies. For instance when I was a young adult I was ashamed of some of my activities and was unwilling to be accountable for them. My parents asked me about some of my lifestyle choices and I blatantly lied about them. Whether my actions were or were not ungodly is not the point, my dishonesty was. I was unwilling to be truthful and accountable for my actions. I knew I would take heavy criticism from my mother and I was unwilling to face that head on. My mother and I got into heated arguments as a result and our relationship suffered greatly. I blame me for this entirely. A few years later I came to a relaization that I was an alocholic but my discomfort with the truth led me to denial and I resumed drinking and spent a few more years drinking and had nothing to do with God. This is falling from grace. THis basic element that dwells within us all, the level of discomfort that we have with the truth is the root of so many of our problems, and leads to several more problems which are more severe in nature. This is why I often stress that we must try to be honest, that we must lower the amount of situations where we justify our dishonesty. If a person asks me if they are ugly and the answer is yes I will still lie and feel justified in doing so. However if I am 10 minutes late for work because I took too long to get out of the house I must be honest and accept responsibility  for my actions and be willing to be accountable. This may sound like an extreme but I will use this example anyhow. If I see a spider in my house and I make a decision to kill that spider should I not be honest about my motivations? Should I not be honest and admit that I killed that spider because he was merely an annoyance? Should I not call it for what it is, justifiable pesticide? So many people  would probably scoff at me. THey would say it's not murder, when clearly it is. They would say we have a right to kill that spider, that it's not a big deal to kill that spider. I agree with them, it's not a big deal. So if it's not a big deal then why do we make such a big deal of it and go into denial about it being murder? We do have such a hard time accepting that word?All I am saying is that we need to be honest about our actions and our motives.