Moral Truth

Moral Truth

There was a time when I had exalted opinions about my moral rectitude. “I haven’t done this [terrible thing], I haven’t engaged in that [sinful activity].”

Or if I HAD done it or engaged in it, there were justifications that made my case exceptional and therefore acceptable, etc.

Those inflated concepts of self-worth and escalated valuations of moral stature were very agreeable for the ego to reside in. But it was like being a soap bubble – or balloon – floating in air, drifting in the sky, filled with its own hot air and vulnerable to the random pin prick of reality.

Life in its wisdom eventually pops the balloons and soap bubbles. Then a very different experience emerges, based on the realm of the heart.

The heart hates arrogance and craves humility. It seeks out every point by which its actual state can be clearly seen, without distortion and false appreciation. It looks to standards beyond man’s control or manipulation, such as the Ten Commandments, in order to evaluate it’s true condition.

THOU SHALT NOT STEAL.

“You have stolen,” says the heart, dispassionately and compassionately.

THOU SHALT NOT COMMIT ADULTERY.

“You have committed adultery,” the heart notes again.

THOU SHALT NOT COVET THY NEIGHBOR’S GOODS.

“You have coveted your neighbor’s goods.”


With each revelation the heart shudders in pain and relief. It wants to know that every possible sin has been committed. It wants to lay itself flat in the road, down in the dust. It wants to have no pretensions of superiority over God or man.

The heart longs to be low.




THOU SHALT NOT KILL.

“Well," the heart muses, "if you didn’t do this physically it wasn’t for want of trying. A man’s throat was in your hands and you were squeezing. If intentions were the measure (and they are) you are a murderer.”

Some of these broken commandments hurt worse than others - to touch them is to nearly die of pain.

But that excruciating agony – electric and uncomfortable - is what the heart seeks. It wants to feel, past any shadow of doubt, that it has nowhere to go but lower, lower, and lower.

It wants to find that Lowliness which is beyond all human lowliness, the Humility which is one with ultimate Greatness . . .

. . . in which it can finally rest.