Beyond Nature & Nurture

How can one raise above his or her own destructive natural tendencies and other traits learned throughout life?

“Pick up your mat and walk” -Jesus told a paralyzed man who had been in that condition for years, only able to go through life by laying on his mat.

Intelectual understanding of this scene spoke to me years back, very superficially, I even forgot about it within days after, but I never forgot that it had opened my eyes for that brief moment, I just wasn’t able to retain that understanding, I had to experience it first hand.

I never forgot about it because it was a revelation for hope. My life was waiting for it become reality.

While I look back today, I can realize that just like that man who was able to pick up his mat and walk, I, too, have received the power over the trades and behaviors that for so many years had hold me up to survive, just like the mat did for that man.

What I mean is that while the mat was helpful for the man, it wasn’t really adding up. He was as stuck, as he was unable to be free and walk.

It is like that in the complexity of life: Different facets in life don’t grow, they seem… paralyzed, they don’t birth anything that can prosper.

Some of the world’s mindsets that had been engraved in my mind and some of my natural tendencies would hold me up, just like the mat, they helped me survive but I was still stuck in them.

I say “some” because not all of them cause damage. I’ve noticed that many times they are good but then they are taken into extremes and kind of enslave us.

What that paralyzed men received was the power to not only overcome whatever was keeping him from moving, but also the strength to move with freedom, even to the extend of now being the one who would carry the mat! Can I hear a Hallelujah!!?

When would he envision himself like that? I was certainly not able to.

This gets better; how come that The man gets to keep the mat? Why wouldn’t he just leave it behind?

Taking it again to my case, it’s amazing because there’s been this tension inside me that has refused to understand my nature and my nurture as evil.

Not that I wanted to feel proud about my life story but I feel grateful about it, how could that feeling be wrong? Specially after acknowledging that it’s all given by God.

I didn’t choose my parents, my country, my society, etc. and all of those determined part of who I am today.

The bad thing is that I was just being led by whatever the world or my nature would say or desire, I was powerless.

The reality is that our nature and nurture aren’t our identity. We are also a conscience, a soul, we may live in the present today but our deepest men knows there’s more to us than whatever this life is.

No wonder why we are always in the hunt of what can make us feel satisfied. We are wanderers today, looking to experience life.

Sure enough, nothing from this world can satisfy the infinite desires in us because this world is, at the end, finite, and our desires never stop.

Infinite is the limit for human kind when empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So there it is. I will surely not be limited by either my nature nor my nurture, but I will be grateful it’s mine and will look forward for the infinite more that is yet to come.