When It’s Easy

I ended yesterday’s post by saying, “We have a great attitude when things are going good and have a bad one when things aren’t going our way. But what is that? Even the worst among us do that.” I’m sure many of you saw its inherent reference to, “If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your brothers, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”
Yet, isn’t that what has always been wrong with those who think of themselves as being good? We are good when there is an audience, when it is to our advantage, or when things are going great. That’s when we find it easy to live on the spiritual plane and be “spiritual” people. But let a bad day happen; let someone wrong us; let our spouse or kids not live up to our expectations, and we resort back to our animalistic ways. In other words, when things don’t go our way, we resort back to our default setting of reacting according to our natural instincts and ingrained habit patterns. When things get tough, we act just like the worst among us, “tax collectors” and “pagans.”
To continuously live on a spiritual plane requires character and discipline. Yet, those traits are in direct opposition to self-esteem. Human beings naturally seek to boost self-esteem through self-gratification and self-image, which quashes character and discipline. Then our true nature and spirituality is revealed.
Regardless of how spiritual or saved we may judge ourselves to be, we are mere spiritual fakes and frauds if our great attitudes and spiritual perspectives are only present when life is going good. After all, being good when it’s easy is absolutely no different from how the worst among us lives his life.