In The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen retells a tale from ancient India: Four royal brothers decided each to master a special ability. Time went by, and the brothers met to reveal what they had learned.
“I have mastered a science,” said the first, “by which I can take but a bone of some creature and create the flesh that goes with it.”
“I,” said the second, “know how to grow that creature’s skin and hair if there is flesh on its bones.”
The third said, “I am able to create its limbs if I have the flesh, the skin, and the hair.”
“And I,” concluded the fourth, “know how to give life to that creature if its form is complete.”
Thereupon the brothers went into the jungle to find a bone so they could demonstrate their specialties. As fate would have it, the bone they found was a lion’s. One added flesh to the bone, the second grew hide and hair, the third completed it with matching limbs, and the fourth gave the lion life. Shaking its mane, the ferocious beast arose and jumped on his creators. He killed them all and vanished contentedly into the jungle.
What we don’t realize is that we have the capacity to create what can destroy us. Our goals and dreams and work and career and study and money can consume us. Possessions and property can turn and destroy us. At the heart of human sin is this turning from worshipping and glorifying God our creator to created things, where we make created things the object of our worship in life. We read in Romans 1:21-23 that this is at the heart of human sinfulness.
For although they knew God, they neither glorified him as God nor gave thanks to him, but their thinking became futile and their foolish hearts were darkened. Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools and exchanged the glory of the immortal God for images made to look like mortal man and birds and animals and reptiles. (Rom.1:21-23)
Instead of turning to God our creator in life to find our true purpose, meaning and significance, we fill our lives with the things that the creator has given us to enjoy. A substitution takes place where we begin to worship that which was not intended for worship. We substitute the glory of God our creator in all his beauty, majesty, worth and power for lesser things and ascribe to them worth and value and worship in our lives. This is the heart of human sinfulness. We fail to see that all the good things we enjoy in life, all our pursuits and ambitions and material things are meant to be the avenue through which we live for and give God worship rather than be the things we live for and worship. Sin is first and foremost substituting the worship of God with the worship of created things, taking the glory that is God’s and giving it to created things.
