Our "human nature" begins the day we are born, as time goes on progresses into what we are likely to be or likely to act like for the rest of our lives. Circumstances, events and of course the people that enter and exit our lives change, so we change. For instance, when I was growing up, people kept leaving my life, for no particular reason mind you. They left because they wanted to, because it was all just to "hard" for them. I often wonder-what about me? I didn't just get to get up and walk out the door. Regardless, that is what people did, so as time went on, my nature was not to trust anyone....but that didn't change my longing for love and for people to stay. Even today, its in my nature to grab hold of people and "love" them to death. It's also in my nature to be honest, despite that I lie sometimes (we all do), its my nature to be truthful. I am very uncomfortable lying. Another example for myself would be that I feel the need to control things around me....a very hard "nature" to lose. I don't expect to control people, that's not my goal, but its very hard to have any of these above things happen, or other things happen and for me to not be able to control the outcome. This is where God comes in...for me I am always praying, whether its "Please, God calm me." or "Please, God give me the strength." I am not the perfect Christian (if there is one-which there isn't) but I am avid about asking for his guidance-whether I listen all the time or not is a different story.
But "Human Nature" is something I find baffling at times. People are expected to be different, everyone has their own agendas, experiences, and etc. The thing that makes no sense to me is our ability to treat people badly because of our selfishness. For instance, a man who rapes a woman, is selfish. He wants sex, so he goes out and gets it. A teenage girl that makes fun of another teenage girl, is selfish because she has low self esteem. People who attend a church but never reach out to anyone outside their "comfort zone" are selfish. As Christians its our calling to bring others to God, to glorify him, to get outside our comfort zone and affect others. My experience has been that some of the best friends you'll make are people that make you "uncomfortable" at first. Stop being selfish. Families who abandon children, even if they are not their own, are selfish. Children need us. Get up and do something. There are so many other ways that people are just ignorant and selfish, there really is no way to list them all.
The saying that "people are basically good" is unfortunately NOT true. People are not basically good. People are basically bad. Being a "good" person takes work, lots of it and most of us are to busy in our own lives to even take a second look to how "good" of a person we are actually being. Our nature takes action and we do what we think we must do to survive. This realization has made me think about the many times I have treated people badly and the many times people have treated me badly. It makes me think about what I need to do to be a better person, to not be selfish. And it makes me pray that the people I know who continue to be selfish will realize that they are hurting themselves AND others. Our goal here, in this life should be to gain friends, love and support one another...whether we agree or not (that doesn't mean we sweep everything under the rug, it just means we deal with it). Our nature is to destroy everything...So, we go against it and we fight for what is right, what is God's and we win.
