The Difficulty of Practicing what You Preach

This week, I have been really struck with how hard it is to make our actions match our words. We see faults in others, but practice the same sins ourselves. What we need is a mirror - the Bible, literature, or other's opinions - to see ourselves as we really are. Two stories I read this week illustrate this well and I'd like to share them with you.
The first is taken from Ravi Zacharias' Jesus among Other Gods, pgs 145-146 (emphasis mine). Dr. Zacharias was speaking as a token theist on the difficulty of preventing cheating in a world where everything is accessible on the internet.
"After [my] lecture, we sat down together for a lunch hosted by faculty members and student leaders. During the lunch, one of the faculty members said something like this: 'All this philosophizing about an objective morality seems so highbrow and philosophically weighty. The basic question I have is very simple: How do we keep students from cheating?'
"As I answered her question, I also reminded her that she was still dealing with the symptons and ignoring the cause.
"At the end of the lunch, a handful of students surrounded me with a flurry of questions. One of them, in low tones, said, 'I really have a problem. I was asked by me professor to come and take in your lecture and to critique what you said. But the truth is that after hearing your arguments, I find myself agreeing with you.'
"'Well, then,' I asked, 'why don't you say that in your paper?'
"'Oh no! I will be definitely docked in my grades if I concur with your reasoning. The professor had been certain that I would disagree with you and wanted me to offer a scathing rebuttal. I am a straight-A student, and I cannot afford to drop my grade.'
"'Are you sure your professor will penalize you just for agreeing with this position on ethics?' I asked her.
"'I am positive,' she said.
"'Was your professor her at the luncheon?' I asked.
"'Yes,' came the obviously hesitant response.
"'Who was it?'
"There was an awkward silence and then an even more uncomfortable admission. 'The one who asked you how she could keep students from cheating.'
"So much for the genuine hunger for truthfulness. I seriously had to wonder if a teacher such as that really wanted her students to learn not to cheat or only to learn to think as she did, even if it meant an entire life of pretense - secondhand doubt."

Wow. As Dr. Zacharias said, the professor did not have a genuine interest in the truth. She wanted to keep students from cheating, but not so that they could write original work - she wanted them to repeat what she thought. That professor herself was part of the cause of intellectual dishonesty (maybe the most serious form of cheating) at the university; she made her own students unwilling to write what they believed. She desperately needed a mirror held up to her own actions; I hope she read Zacharias' book and had enough sincerity left to be convicted and change her ways.

The second story is simply a news article, taken from the most recent world magazine (May 3/10 2008), pg. 15.
"One Idaho state senator should be thankful a bill he sponsored didn't get passed earlier. Police in Boise tagged Sen. John Goedde with speeding through a school zone the same day he debated his bill to increase fines for such tickets on the floor of the state Senate. Goedde's bill to increase the minimum fine for speeding through a school zone eared passage on April 1 - about a month after he was issued a $141.50 ticket for driving 32 mph near a school. 'There was some irony there,' the Coeur d'Alene senator acknowledged."
Irony? It makes me want to cry for this man's hypocrisy. To do him some justice, he asserts that he did not see the signs and flashing lights that signified a school zone. Hopefully he will be be convicted for the right reasons - not just because he was caught and faces very bad publicity, but because he was violating the laws of his state. As a state senator, he ought to be a leader in the area of civic responsibility. Here is the link to the full news article, if you're curious: http://www.spokesmanreview.com/breaking/story.asp?ID=14478

Well, my brother Adam turns 15 today, so we are having a nice dinner. I have some work to do before then.
P.S. Mr. V liked my second thesis on the correct topic.