San’s family journal

Gen 2:16  He told him, “You may eat the fruit of any tree in the garden,

Gen 2:17  except the tree that gives knowledge of what is good and what is bad. You must not eat the fruit of that tree; if you do, you will die the same day.”

Yen told me that she is having problem with the progress of her study and asked me for opinion. hmm… that is really interesting… let me see… i am now in the midst of applying for Ph.D and she most probably will take forever to finish her DBA…

this is not happening as i already mentioned to her that she either has to concentrate on study or working and she had to choose one. but after all these years, she is working on both. so… i guess i just have to go on with my Ph.D regardless Yen is doing well or not.

Lately I have this interesting conversation with a pastor friend about a quotable quote that sounds like this: Many of the roots of human problems are human has a good memory. I suggested that there is no such thing as forgetting what is unpleasant but instead we have to over come those unpleasant memories.

The problem lies in the discussion was that there is this suggestion that we should forget or remember less about memories that we are not able to overcome, as it will be disastrous. In my opinion, in order for the thing to work out, first and foremost, we human must possess the ability to forget about unpleasant memory which I have no confidence at all that human can do that. So basically, instead of talking about forgetting unpleasant memories, I believe that we should actually overcome the negative feelings or impacts brought by the memories and make them as our experience and wisdom of life so that we would not be hold back by those memories.

From the logical point of view, a memory will bring pains to others or oneself if the memories are not properly handled. If we handle the memories properly, there is no need in talking about forgetting those memories. It is disastrous when only we are haunted by the memories but remembering an unpleasant memory does not mean that we are haunted by it. So the idea is to overcome the unpleasant memories and is not to forget about those memories. If we are trying to forget about some memories, it is rather ironic to say that we are actually hold back by the memories when we try to forget about them.

From the biblical point of view, if we are able to selectively forget about certain memories, then I guess we will say our prayer like this: Lord, please help me to forget about this incident. Though I am not God, but I think that God will prefer that we say our prayer like this: Lord, please help me to deal with this incident. If we can forget about certain incident, I guess we do not need God’s help at all. If we do need God’s help, I do not think that God will make us forget about the unpleasant memories. Instead, God will give us the strength to accept, reconcile, forgive, embrace and learn from those unpleasant memories and become wiser and be a blessing to others that have the same kind of problem. 

When grace failed to get her mother’s attention, she raised her voice and ask her mother to put on her ears. That was something new to us and i just it is because Yen and I used to tell Grace that we could not see well because we didn’t put on our glasses.

Gen 4:7  If you had done the right thing, you would be smiling; but because you have done evil, sin is crouching at your door. It wants to rule you, but you must overcome it.” 

Mat 5:21  “You have heard that people were told in the past, ‘Do not commit murder; anyone who does will be brought to trial.’ Mat 5:22  But now I tell you: if you are angry with your brother you will be brought to trial, if you call your brother ‘You good-for-nothing!’ you will be brought before the Council, and if you call your brother a worthless fool you will be in danger of going to the fire of hell.Mat 5:27  “You have heard that it was said, ‘Do not commit adultery.’ Mat 5:28  But now I tell you: anyone who looks at a woman and wants to possess her is guilty of committing adultery with her in his heart. 

Luk 17:1  Jesus said to his disciples, “Things that make people fall into sin are bound to happen, but how terrible for the one who makes them happen!  

Joh 9:1  As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man who had been born blind. Joh 9:2  His disciples asked him, “Teacher, whose sin caused him to be born blind? Was it his own or his parents’ sin?” Joh 9:3  Jesus answered, “His blindness has nothing to do with his sins or his parents’ sins. He is blind so that God’s power might be seen at work in him.   

Now, this part is still in preliminary state of thoughts thus if it somewhat differs from the your thoughts of Sin, you may leave a comment for me.

We used to say that when we do something wrong that is a Sin but from my point of view, that is the end result of Sin. Sin is actually the result of gaining “the knowledge of what is good and what is bad” where we no more have the absolute freedom in making the right choice based on the absolute standard of God. After Eve and Adam ate the Fruit, everything went chaos and they begun to experience the emotions that they had never experience before. Adam out of fear tried to blame the thing on Eve and push the responsibility back to God. Eve in turn tried to blame the Snake. All these things happened because they know the consequences and blaming and shunning the responsibility were the options to them at that time. “The knowledge” gave us more options no mater how absurd and emotional they are than what is needed to make a good decision. From there onwards, decision-making would not be as simply as just following orders.

Jesus told us that to get angry with someone and having evil thoughts are considered as Sins. Thus I guess Sin in this case is having the wrong emotions and wrong thoughts even the thoughts are not implemented. Jesus also said that things that make people fall into Sin are bound to happen and it is especially truth as it is apparent as we always say there are many temptations in this world. Temptation is Sin that crouching at the door and we have to fight it by making the right choice based on the teaching of Christ. But we are all corrupted and are not able to make the right decision most of the time. That is why we need the Holy Spirit to live in our heart to free us from the bondage of “the knowledge” and have a new knowledge to base our decisions on.

Lastly, I guess we might have the concept that Sin is actually inherited from Adam and Eve, but as the way Jesus put it in John 9:1 to 9:3, I believe that Sin is not inherited biologically or in other direct manner to the descendants. When we talk about the sinful nature, it is actually meant that we are not consistently making good decisions after we are born into this world because we acquire “the knowledge” as we grow up under the influence of our parents, family and society.