There are three negative forces in our world that are the opposites of love, faith, and hope.  The opposing forces are hate, fear, and confusion and shame.  I paired confusion and shame because they are frequently together in Scripture.  Love is opposite of hate, faith opposes fear, and hope battles confusion and shame in our world.  These and more bad things flow from sin, which is the real problem.

The word negative, to be honest, caused me to stop and think awhile.  Most of this reflection is because of friction!  As a science teacher, I presented friction as a “negative” force and frequently as something to be defeated.  Just because something opposes you does not mean that it is bad, remember the angel in the talking mule story of Balaam.  If there is a “push” normally there is a “pull” that is needed to get the job done!  Without friction, we do not move.  So, in itself friction is not bad, as it is nice to move.  Friction is not the topic of this post, so back to hate, fear, and confusion and shame.  Just remember to be careful when using the word “negative”.

Sin and Satan use these three negative forces to affect this world. For Christians, they will affect us if we don’t use God’s grace given us through the sacrifice that Jesus provided.  In discussing the post of Creation Qualities #1 and #2 with my wife brought up 1 John 2:16 when I mentioned these negative forces.  The Apostle John talks about the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life as not being from the Father. (These are KJV terms, my 1990 NIV uses different terms for the same ideas.)  Since lust are internal and pride can have an outward and internal manifestation I thought I could work them into the pattern of the first two posts.  Trying this thought and then that one, I just never felt comfortable in squeezing them into a “negative” form of the first post.  Pride and the lusts did not pair up nicely with hate, fear, and confusion and shame.  The thought that did develop was that pride and the lusts could develop from hate, fear, and confusion and shame individual or collectively. Hate, fear, confusion and shame, pride, and the lusts are real and they will consume you if you let them.  Jesus is the source of help when you finally realize that you have a problem – see “Following Jesus?” and find a good Bible-believing church!