Character

On your gentle heart - you are woeful over the fact that it sometimes:

"... manifests itself in ways not attractive ..."

I don't think that you are a mass murderer (he said hopefully) but if you feel like being a cantankerous old goat on occasion then no-one will judge you too harshly for it - the world is all the richer for characters.

I stopped beating myself up all the time a while ago. I know I'm not perfect but there are some even less perfect than me - they don't treat others how they themselves wish to be treated at all :-) One needs to meet some nastys in a while to realise that one isn't all that bad. Apart from being full of sin and fallen of course, which goes without saying.

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Competition again. Why do humans fight? Why is the phrase "you fought well" between humans acceptable? What is driving this? Sport. Competition. Why does natural selection exist at all?

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There are naysayers in the world. They exist to say "I told you so" and "I'm smarter than you". This gets back to competition again. Why are we like this?

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Did Jesus display a competitive nature at any point in scripture? Maybe in driving the market traders out of the Church? He could have just "chilled out" and gone down the local (or the then equivalent). To drive traders out you are kind of saying "I am right and you are wrong" - aren't you?

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You wrote:

"If one can't remember ever making that decision on their own, then I guess one should reflect on the nature of their own commitment."

Is that enough though? I don't think so. Many indoctrinated Christians remember just this time, but my point is that they had little chance not to experience this moment - what with all the pressure applied from their environment. It's very rare that - at that moment - the indoctrinated Christian suddenly makes the decision to follow Allah. These statistics tell us something.

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I'm glad Dallas is helping you but I know for sure that you're a whole bunch smarter than him. Go with your own VIM pal. The Lord made the Bagwell and He made him well. Trust that.