Chapter Ten

Mad And Mean?

Here I am, mean and mad again.

It seems that all I do is fight my mean and mad side. I spend incredible amounts of energy fighting my brain. There are so many things in life that make you mad. Life made me mad since the day I was born. Mad got put in me real young and got added to and added to. Mad and mean just seemed to become part of me.

Mad and mean gets put in young children when life is mean to them. They are not wanted or nurtured. They are abused mentally, emotionally, socially, physically, and spiritually.

The stories vary, but not much.

I have studied man's history since the dawn of time and have discovered that this is common. No matter what country or culture, these things occur. I am blessed because I was born in a country with great wealth and freedoms not experienced elsewhere. My government is not a republic, and so, as one of the lesser class, I am not as oppressed as others. Yet, there is still that mean and mad.

Everyone wants to be accepted, approved and wanted. When these things are absent from the day you are born, for whatever reason, the person is guaranteed to be warped. Things within will not function as they should because the things that should have been poured and nurtured in the child are not.

When this happens, children learn to become chameleons. They learn behaviours that work for them. It has nothing to do with right, wrong, good or bad, it has to do with survival. The desire to live is built very strong in us humans, and unlike animals, we must be taught all we know, all we learn to behave.

Like many animals, we learn to be as our environment presents us. Depending on the country you are born in, the culture, and the class of society you are born into, how you look at the world and people will be different. Yet in all these differences that people use to look at their lives and their world, there is a sameness that can not be denied, and it is not as animals are.

Animals run on genetics and instinct. Man runs on genetics, a reasoning mind, and his spirit. Man can have instinct, but it is not a dominant factor in most people. In animals, it is the knowing (which instinct is) of how to hunt and survive that keeps the animal alive. In humans, if we are not taught, we will not know. We must learn everything. Pick a subject.

As I attend the “University of Life” and obtain a degree in “Being Human,” I will learn every subject if I am willing and attend my studies. Life is not kind to quitters. Life is made up of many subjects. We are mental, emotional, physical and spiritual beings. In each of these are many more subjects.

Unlike animals, our lives do not depend on being the strongest or the fittest. They do not depend on knowledge acquired or lack of knowledge. It can still be a vicious world, and great damage can be done, but man, if he wishes, can still live despite all these things and more. This is pretty incredible when you allow yourself to think about it.

I read and read, trying to understand where the right of “others” to invade and destroy my life comes from. Where does this thinking come from? How could I have been born to it?

Knowing it involved five children, how did my parents justify their actions to behave and do what they did? How could they not choose properly? Could it be that they were not taught and became lost when life got hard? What was life for them growing up?

The fact that I do not know personal details does not have to matter, I can look at history. This is something only humans can do.

When I first became really sick and physically exhausted, I came to realize that I knew nothing of the physical body workings, nothing of what constituted proper nutrition. I started studying. Biology, anatomy, and various natural medicine books. Slowly, I came to understand. In this one book on nutrition, I read, “A lot of senility is long-range malnutrition to the body.” It makes sense.

Think of it in terms of a mechanical motor. Consider a car. It comes to you brand new, in top running condition. Yet it will not remain in top running condition if not maintained. Lack of maintenance will show in the long run, to the point that the car may not run well and eventually not at all. So, too, with the human body. It must be fed and maintained.

If long-range malnutrition makes one senile, then what occurs when you are mentally or spiritually malnourished?

Read, read, study, study. Pick, pick like a miner. Learn to step back from one's story to look at the whole picture of that subject. And I discovered wonderful, livable truths. I discovered a living God who created the design, keeps hold of all His design and has a purpose for all that is in His design. He explains who He is, what He has done and why.

However, we are given this incredible gift, which gives us the right to see Him or ignore Him—either/or. It is the gift of choice.

It is part of human nature to take the easier route when dealing with problems. It is easier to give in to the mad & mean than to fight it. Yet God's word says He has a different way planned and that if we, with the gift of choice given, choose to fight ourselves, we will have success. It is not by our power but by the power of His Spirit if we are willing to learn.

Let's take a look.

Now he did not say this simply of his own accord – he was not self-moved; but being the high priest that year, he prophesied that Jesus was to die for the nation; and not only for the nation, but also for the purpose of uniting into one body the children of God who have been scattered far and wide. (John 11: 51, 52) Amp.

We have renounced disgraceful ways – secret thoughts, feelings, desires and underhandedness, methods and arts that men hide through shame; we refuse to deal craftily (to practise trickery and cunning) or to adulterate or to handle dishonestly the Word of God; but we state the truth openly- clearly and candidly. And so we commend ourselves in the sight and presence of God to every man's conscience.

The god of this world has blinded the unbelievers' minds (that they should not discern the truth), preventing them from seeing the illuminating light of the Gospel of the glory of Christ, the Messiah, who is God's image and likeness.

However, we possess this precious treasure [the divine Light of the Gospel] in [frail, human] vessels of earth, that the grandeur and exceeding greatness of the power may be shown to be of God and not from ourselves. We are hedged in (pressed) on every side – troubled and oppressed in every way; but not cramped or crushed; we suffer embarrassments and are perplexed and unable to find a way out, but not given to despair; we are (persecuted and hard driven,) pursued, but not deserted – to stand alone; we are struck down to the ground, but never struck out and destroyed; always carrying about in the body the liability and exposure to the same putting to death that the Lord Jesus suffered, so that the [resurrection-] life of Jesus also may be shown forth by and in our bodies.

For we who live are constantly [experiencing] being handed over to death for Jesus' sake, that the [resurrection-] life of Jesus also may be evidenced through our flesh which is liable to death. Thus death is actively at work in us, but [it is in order that our] life [may be actively at work] in you. Yet we have the same spirit of faith as he had who wrote, I have believed, and therefore have I spoken. We too believe, and therefore we speak.

For our light, momentary affliction (this slight distress of the passing hour) is ever more and more abundantly preparing and producing and achieving for us an everlasting weight of glory – beyond all measure, excessively surpassing all comparisons and all calculations, a vast and transcendent glory and blessedness never to cease! Since we consider and look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are visible are temporal (brief and fleeting), but the things that are invisible are deathless and everlasting. (2 Cor. 4: 2, 4, 7-13, 17, 18) Amp

But whenever a person turns (in repentance) to the Lord the veil is stripped off and taken away. Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty – emancipation from bondage, freedom. And all of us, as with unveiled face [because we] continued to behold [in the Word of God] as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are constantly being transfigured into His very own image in ever increasing splendour and from one degree of glory to another; [for this comes] from the Lord [Who is] the Spirit. (2 Cor. 3: 16-18) Amp.

So for the sake of Christ, I am well pleased and take pleasure in infirmities, insults, hardships, persecutions, perplexities and distresses; for when I am weak (in human strength), then am I [truly] strong – able, powerful in divine strength. Examine and test and evaluate your own selves, to see whether you are holding to your faith and showing the proper fruits of it. Test and prove yourselves, [not Christ]. Do you not yourselves realize and know (thoroughly by an ever-increasing experience) that Jesus Christ is in you? Unless you are [counterfeits] disapproved on trial and rejected! For we can do nothing against the Truth [not serve any party or personal interest], but only for the Truth [which is the Gospel]. (2 Cor. 12: 10, 5, 8) Amp.

Therefore, my dear ones, as you have always obeyed [my suggestions], so now, not only [with the enthusiasm you would show] in my presence but much more because I am absent, work out – cultivate, carry out to the goal and fully complete – your own salvation with reverence and awe and trembling [self-distrust, that is, with serious caution, tenderness of conscience, watchfulness against temptation, timidly shrinking from whatever might offend God and discredit the name of Christ]. [Not in your own strength] for it is God Who is all the while effectually at work in you – energizing and creating in you the power and desire – both to will and to work for His good pleasure and satisfaction and delight.(Phil. 2: 12, 13) Amp.

So there you go, the answer to the mad and mean. It is no pixie dust; it is a constant laying down of what is not of God and the picking up of what is of God. We find the treasures within us by getting rid of the garbage and keeping that which is formed from the bad times, the stressful times, and the times of devastation. As we do these things and they become sure things in ourselves, we find they strengthen us to deal with the world and all it wants to throw at us.

I have found that when I lean to the Spirit of God in this moment, this situation, this problem, madness and meanness have no place. I look and endeavour to be caring, kind, and generous—genuinely, sincerely. By His Spirit, I gain compassion, mercy, and forgiveness.

Out of this am I able to see life through God's eyes. I see lost, not rude.

I see where I came from in others and am grateful to my release from prison. It is my choice. What will I entertain in my mind, my emotions? The things of the past and the world or the things of the Spirit and of God. Will I learn to look to Jesus or expect people to be different?

Jesus is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow. You can count on it. However, people will do what people want to do, and people will be what people want to be.