Daily Updates

USED TO IT?
In his work, Memoirs from the House of the Dead, Fyodor Dostoevsky remarked that, “Man is a creature who can get used to anything.” This is a startling and bone-chilling assessment. The truth of the statement is backed up and proven by human history. Consider, for example, the atrocities committed against mankind during World War II in the Nazi concentration camps. The senseless murder and torture of millions of men, women and children is well documented.

Victor Franki, a holocaust survivor and author of Man’s Search for Meaning, recalls the way in which his peers became desensitized to the brutality around them. The same process was done repeatedly. When someone was new to a concentration camp they would at first be confused. “Where am I? Why am I here? Through all this confusion, they would hold out hope that they would soon be rescued and soon be reunited with their loved ones. Also in these early stages, they would recoil in honor and dismay when they saw fellow prisoners being tortured and beaten. They simply could not stand to see a camp mate being abused.

Soon the horror would turn to hum-drum. The amazement would turn to apathy. The prisoners reached a point where they had seen so much pain, sorrow, and suffering that they were no longer affected by it. Their hearts were not affected no matter how brutal the scene.

What a pitiful situation. Men and women had seen so much violence and bloodshed that they no longer cared. They got used to it. Certainly there is an important lesson here for us. We must be alert. We must be guarding our hearts and minds. It may just be a case that, like Israel before us, we are getting used to sin.

Were they ashamed when they had committed abomination? No! They were not at all ashamed; nor did they know how to blush. Therefore they shall fall among those who fall; at the time I punish them, they shall be cast down. Says the lord” (Jeremiah 6:15). Don’t get used to sin! Just because we are bombarded with worldliness and sin constantly does not give us an excuse to become apathetic to those things. God still expects His children to talk, dress, act and think differently then the world. Man can get use to anything. Have we gotten used to sin?

Jordan Edwards, Garden Valley church of Christ