The sin of Certainty?

"Certainty is the epistemic property of beliefs which a person has no rational grounds for doubting. One standard way of defining epistemic certainty is that a belief is certain if and only if the person holding that belief could not be mistaken in holding that belief."

Wow. I get it now. 

If we were so certain about every aspect of our beliefs, we would never have a reason to doubt. 

Doubting is good because it makes us search for answers.

Without doubt, there would never be a need to learn to trust, learn to have faith. 

That doesn't mean God wants us to doubt him, that means that He knows we will doubt him, so therefore He provides answers, so we can find them.

 

“to a fault”

If you say that someone has a particular good quality to a fault, you are emphasizing that they have more of this quality than is usual or necessary. Jefferson was generous to a fault. 

Collinsdictionary.com

Excessively, extremely, as in He was generous to a fault. This phrase, always qualifying an adjective, has been so used since the mid-1700s.

dictionary.com

Oh boy.. yeah. I'm that person. 

I'm learning where my fault lines are. It's hard.

“you can take it to the bank”

can take (something) to the bank ... Can believe a particular statement or piece of information because it is definitely true (at least according to the speaker).

idioms.thefreedictionary.com 

I don't know what's an idiom or just a saying. And is that what an idiom means? A saying that means something weird?

I'm autistic. I mainly take things literally. So I don't get these things very well. 

"Take it to the bank"- so like when you write a check, it's like shaking someone's hand.. it's a sure thing. "take my word for it" type thing.

"living in a vacuum"

In total isolation; having no interaction with or connection to other people, places, or actions. Your actions don't occur in a vacuum; they affect everyone else here, too! Being in such a remote, rural town can sometimes feel like living in a vacuum.

idioms.thefreedictionary.com

I've never understood what this saying meant. Living in a vacuum.. living in a bubble? Growing up being shielded/protected from things in the world because they are bad? Or just because they are too volatile? Too unsure? So you stick with what's safe? 

Interesting. I guess that makes more sense now.

Ephesians 2:8-9

 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift of God - not by works, so that no one can boast. 

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Grace is a gift. 

You can't earn it. You don't do anything to receive it. When you're in a relationships with God, grace is abundant and overflowing from Him. 

Grace is love and forgiveness... just because.

Grace = unmerited + unearned forgiveness and love. 

I've been working through a "6 week course" on healing through faith, and I am on a part about giving yourself grace, and i've asked myself this before.. what is grace? 

And How do I give it to myself? 

I found myself defining it as:

unmerited = is not based on merit

---> merit being a quality of being good or worthy. Deserving of praise or reward. Above average performance. Good deeds regarded as entitlement. To deserve, to be worthy of. 

unearned = 

---> to earn being to gain deservedly in return for one's behavior or achievements. An activity to cause someone to obtain money. To obtain in return for servies or actions or deeds or work. 

Grace isn't something you gain because you worked for it or are worthy of it. Grace isn't something you can gain by being good or are entitiled to as an award for performance. 

Grace is love and forgiveness given purely because.. just because. 

There's no ulterior motive, there's no underlying reason, there's no "small print" or "only if". 

Grace is love and forgiveness... just because. 

You can't lose it by being ungrateful or turning away and doing something bad or wrong, because we do something bad or wrong all the time, called sin. And God loves us inthe middle of that because of what his son did. 

He covered us with the blood of his death and resurrection. 

That's pure untarnished love. 

That's why we can be covered by grace. 

Aversion feels like weakness.

I realized the other day that I have an aversion to, not necessarily people telling me what to do, but to people giving me instructions on things that I feel like I should know how to do it, or I've done in the past so I can do it again by myself. 

So someone guiding me through or giving me instructions something that I used to do on my own or that I feel like I should still be able to do on my own, I've become stubborn, and I can be angry and anxious about it because I don't want to admit that I need direction. 

I believe this come from a deep-seated issue with laways being told what to do, thriving as a child on people telling me what to do, having instruction to follow, and then been thrown into the wind and now having anything solid to grasp onto. Now that I've finally been figuring out how to do some things on my own, I don't like being told how to do something I have gotten the hang of. 

But not, since I'm having more issues mentally, I'm having to lean into the fact that I need instruction on a daily basis, I need that structure, it helps me for people to give me things to do (but not tell me how to do them past general instructions).. So there's a massive tug-of-war internally. Also because i'm a people please, I want to make people happy, but at the same time I want to still have a sense of security in the fact that I am somewhat independant. 

No wonder being autistic and codependent is such a hard thing. The strggle is so vey real. This is why I need God, every day, every hour. Because I definitely cannot do all of this on my own, and leaning on other people is too confusing. They don't have their crap together, either.