The Lostness of Man

Last night, I attended a meeting at United Evangelical Church of Greenhills (UECG) concerning the upcoming joint AZCOP Young Professionals camp. But it's not the camp I'm going to talk about, it's what happened after. It was pretty late when we ended, around 11-ish pm. And on the way back, I unknowingly turned into a one-way street. At first, there were no cars, and then suddenly, a black car went in front of me, and stopped right there. Now, I didn't know this way a one-way street (No, really, I didn't), so I left tons of space to my left for people passing through going the other way. But this guy refused to do it, and decided to block the whole road. Then he stepped out of his car and came towards me. On his face was already an expression of anger. He lashed out at me, telling me that it was a one-way street and that I had to go back the other way. I told him to just go around me and allow me to go through since I was so close to the intersection, and he was blocking tons of cars. The argument went back and forth, and in the end, neither of us were willing to budge. He went back to his car, and waited, while I did the same. Tons of cars were piling up behind him and honking at him. He went down and told them all it was my fault, and I had tons of people glaring angrily at me through my windshield. Still, I wouldn't budge. Then he came back to me and told me that he called the police to report that I stole the car I was driving in. I replied by bringing my window back up again. He then incited all the street people to tell me to move my car. I still wouldn't listen. After a while, I realized that I had let my pride get the better of me, and agreed to back out, to which he taunted me more by driving his car head-to-head with mine, as though pushing it back. On the way home, I entertained ugly thoughts about what I should've done to him. Today, as my mind is clear and thinking straight, I realize the error of my ways. I shouldn't have tried to butt heads with him. Even though he could have shown a little more kindness to me, I was, in fact, wrong. And it is a measure of my pride that caused me to heat up like that. My pride has been one of my big weaknesses, and something that I continue to pray to the Lord to help me with.

This incident reminded me of a sermon by my favorite speaker/author, Dr. Ravi Zacharias (You can visit his site and download his sermons from the link on the right), which was entitled "The Lostness of Man". In it he said these words, "God has told us for centuries now that the fundamental problem with man is his very heart. There is something twisted, almost demonic within the very heart of man. The Bible uses the word, sin. It makes it explicit that this is the heart of man, and implicit of that statement, that the bent of man is towards evil and imagination." He expounds upon the fact that man is by nature sinful. And it's until we realize that we are sinners can we be saved.