Are there any good?

I was thinking about people, and how strange it is that we develop sympathies and tolerance for traits in others that we can admit to ourselves. It seems that until we cross paths with a certain set of circumstances, our ignorance can make us insensitive.

Rare is it that a person is sympathetic to and accepting of every type of person. But one by one, as they encounter a different type, [the wiser of us] become more accepting.

I liken it to creating laws. It's not until there are too many incidents by a single cause that we outlaw the cause. Enron collapses, we create whistleblower-protection laws; 9/11, we install the Patriot Act; a child is run over, we set up a crosswalk.

Why? Why only develop sympathies and acceptance through either a struggle or an encounter with a struggle? Why not, by default, love everyone without knowing who they are or where they've come from? I think that is something only God is capable of.

"Why do you call me good?" Jesus answered. "No one is good - except God alone."

A lot of the time I think we run a 'guilty-until-proven-innocent' agenda with others (and by that I imply more people groups than to individuals). Quite frankly, sometimes we accept just because we can't get away with non-acceptance anymore. In other words, we don't sympathize out of our own goodness, but because it is to our own benefit. One may take a look at himself, and if he can muster up any admittance of flaw, may finally understand that they with sin can't [safely] throw stones. His sympathy is self-preservation. So I'm a cynic; so this is a 'glass-half-empty' analysis; I'm not saying it's universal. Heck, I am fully guilty!

In my view, our primary level of operation is the animal level. Paul calls it "the flesh", with its array of chemical reactions and its environment/experience-molded modus operandi, and it is a truth even Darwin would agree on. It's the inescapable self-prioritizing (while yet a beast), the survival syndrome, that is at the heart of every move. Must work for money for shelter for food for offspring. Must make wise-cracks to feel superior. Must create a flurry of busyness at church so I can please God. Must climb the corporate ladder. Must stay in a depressed state so people don't stop paying attention to me. Must tell at least 5 people how that girl wronged me so she pays for hurting me and I end up the "fittest"!

Even that which seems contrary to survival, things like suicide, can even be seen to be of a self-preservation method. People usually kill themselves to relieve themselves of pain. It's a twisted survival sister.

I think the Bible is true again when it says, "All a man's ways seem innocent to him". It goes on to say, "but motives are weighed by the Lord". Are there any good?

A solution seems impractical and far out of reach. One of my favourites, Jacob Boeme, puts it simply (yet so difficultly) : "our trance of selfishness must end".

Thank God for a new nature, one that goes against the grain of the old nature. One that brings to prominence our spirits as the heart of every action. And oh, what a fight the old nature puts up!
But no longer subject to the rule of flesh, we are like the One who brought us out of its slavery. We have the same heart of love, acceptance, and sympathy that produced such immense sacrifice. And over that creation, He can once again say "it is good!"