The Thorn that makes or breaks us

Heaven bend to take my hand and lead me through the fire

Be the long awaited answer to a long and painful fight

Truth be told I tried my best

But somewhere long the way, I got caught up in all there was to offer

But the cost was so much more than I could bear

Fallen by Sarah Mclachlan

The eve of the year becomes a war zone in my yard.
Having four oak trees surrounding me, when the winter winds arrive means I spend a great many hours having to clear up the seasonal debris, several times over, to maintain the area in the light of what 'naturally' transpires. Blocked gutters and drains, hazardous steps and pathways, falling materials that can cause dangers on dark nights, all have to be dealt with, however 'natural' the occurrence.

What's true of my trees is doubly true of human nature.
We don't see ourselves as doing anything wrong in behaving 'naturally' in respect to our proclivity to put ourselves and our opinions first, but it doesn't take much - some sober analysis of the kind the likes of Jordan Peterson has been calling for - to begin to peel away the pretense and discover what folly and misapprehension lies beneath.

This is doubly so regarding the essential suppositions concerning atheism.
Here is a video that asks some reasonable and honest questions on the nature of those presuppositions - why are they held, and are they genuinely applicable.
It's imperative to honestly expose ourselves to such considerations, because without them,
we find ourselves in a trap of our own making.

In his book Grace in Practice, Paul Zahl states in the concluding paragraphs of the first chapter that "internal motives are the most compromised of all data", particularly in respect to our defining the world as made up of good people and bad people. His analysis here - which brings a really deep jolt when you stop and think on it - is derived from what's said by Jesus about us (Mark 7:20-23) - that the real problems we encounter much of the time derive fom what so 'naturally' comes from us.

Our views, our attitudes, our motivational imperatives, are far from innocent, so we shouldn't be surprised that we 'rationally' read the world and our place in it, wrong. Our entire propensity is to stack the deck in favor of one thing - me - and that leaves us "blind as a bat and out of control" - we just can't live with that admission, so we contrive to make our folly true, whatever it takes.

The cliff-edge precariousness of our folly is only truly embraced when we know we're powerless to change our situation and understand that we need to. That's when we can step out into what first appeared to be void and discover there's far more than one hard, dark season - more than our constantly shelling out what we singularly deem correct.

The winter can unfold and break towards more than cold, short days can ever hold.

There's a far bigger world in God's good grace than you find buried beneath all the ruins of self determined existence.