Ever thought about how we humans seem to do things in cycles?

EVER THOUGHT ABOUT HOW WE HUMANS SEEM TO DO THINGS IN CYCLES, every so often repeating things ad nauseam, until we’re right back to where we started from?

When you think about it, our world today isn't really any different from “the olden days.” Yes, we have great new inventions and gadgets and gee-gaws and stuff to make our life easier today, but have men REALLY changed?

(If you answer was “yes” to that, then please answer WHY do we still have wars and poverty, and racial tension, and division, and animosities toward certain people groups, and a whole gamut of other dilemmas that ebb and flow, yet never seem to go away? We ALWAYS end up repeating history!)

Take the Bible, for instance, the stories about the various kings. One king would do things according to Torah – and life would be great for however long he lived or was in power. And then his successor, recognizing how great life was, would slack off and forget all about ADONAI and His Divine Instructions, and suddenly, everything went downhill – a cycle that repeated for centuries…

Problem is, as educated as we are in today’s world, we humans STILL tend to go in cycles ... often "full circle" like a caged rodent in an exercise wheel, running round and round, going nowhere. We knock ourselves out to "do better" and have all these great ideas and remedies to situations - yet most of the time, we revert back to doing EXACTLY what we attempted to change, make better, or avoid. We really never seem to learn…

We get in ruts, doing what we “know” and are accustomed to – and if that doesn’t work, we’re willing to change things up just a little bit, convincing ourselves that THIS TIME it will work out if we “just continue along this path.”

Yet, more often than not, we end up back exactly where we started from because “life got in the way,” or there were too many "voices" and/or opinions from the "peanut gallery" telling us what to do, etc. We humans often make a million excuses in our attempts to justify our failures…

BOTTOM LINE: mankind simply never learns. We might try to "accomplish something better in the future," but in the end, we often revert back to "who we were" and "how we used to do things." Hardly anyone realizes that things would “go well for us” IF WE SIMPLY STARTED SEEKING ADONAI ELOHIM in prayer, and OBEYING His Torah (Divine Instructions in Righteousness)!

Revelation 22: 14. Blessed are they who do His (Master YHWH's) Mitzvot, that they may have a right to the tree of life and may enter through the gates into the city. (AENT)

(See Deuteronomy 27:26 and 28:1-15; Romans 1: 22-31; 2 Peter 2:19-22; and Matthew 24:3-14.)

PONDERING THESE THINGS TODAY reminded me of this little story we counselors used in a church "Singles Adjustment Seminar" (a weekend for newly divorced or widowed people). It went something like this:

Satan hates you and he wants to hurt/maim/kill you! He keeps us on a "merry-go-round" from which we cannot escape, because he knows our likes and dislikes and the "ruts" we are in. We are creatures of habit and will ALWAYS gravitate back to what we know.

Here is an example:

A guy comes to a "fork" in the road. He looks to the left and sees a lot of bumps and potholes. He looks to the right and the road looks a lot newer and better, so he takes that one. He walks for a long time with no problems, then all of a sudden, he falls into a huge pothole - one so big, it takes him days to climb out.

So, he goes back to the fork in the road, looks to the left and the right. The left has all those potholes and the right is still smooth, so he figures, now since he knows where that big pothole is, he will just walk around it, and so he takes that "right" road again.

When he gets to the pothole, he walks around it, but didn't realize there was another, even bigger one on the other side, and he falls into that one, which again takes him days to climb out of. Once he does, he goes back to the fork, but rather than to try to see where that other road leads, he once again decides to take the smoother-looking road, because now he knows where those two potholes are, and he'll just be extra careful this time...

Do you get it? Instead of taking that "bumpy road" at the "fork in the road," we often attempt to fix ourselves the SAME way we always did - except from several different angles, doing what is "right" according to our limited human mindsets.

We like to believe we are in control, never stopping to think that, if we were to LET GO of what we THINK we know, we could begin to find some better remedies and get to our final destination a stronger, smarter person helping humanity to live in a better, smarter, more peaceful world…

The other way – with what we THINK we know - can kill us! And that is what Satan is counting on. After all, if you're dead, you no longer have a chance to "get yourself right with God!"

THINK ABOUT THAT!