Article February 16, 1998 Issue

"Get out of here! This is my house!"

Insights on self-government

By Thomas O. Poyser

A little boy found a playhouse in a park and was enjoying it when suddenly another child, bigger and older, tried to enter. With this, the little fellow hollered: "Get out of here! This is my house!" Although it might seem he was being selfish, there's a lesson in his vehement defense of his domain.

The words domain and dominion are both used to describe mental states as well as physical realms or conditions. And they both derive from the same Latin origin, meaning "house." Most of us would be as ready as that child to defend our place of residence against invasion, but are we as alert and vehement in preventing unwelcome influences from entering our mental domain, our consciousness?

Intolerable intrusions may appear to take the form of an aggressive associate, a contentious child, a fractious family member, a noxious neighbor, a serious disease, or the temptation to sin. But a case can be made for the fact that these are all mental encroachments! They are to be warded off not as evil people, things, or powers, but as fundamentally wrong suppositions about our nature. They are intrusions, arguing that our dwelling place is vulnerable. But the Apostle Paul tells us that in God, Spirit, "we live, and move, and have our being" (Acts 17:28).

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Article

Whose Church is it?