What Was Thought Beneficial Became the Destroyer

As I posted earlier about the problems with my PC, I have been without it since Wednesday evening, April 21.  After expert help and some not so expert expertise from me, I come to find out the issue was McAfee (which came free with the computer for 3 years).  It turns out that McAfee, an anti-virus mega software, did not test out an update -- an update that froze up and rendered inoperable hundreds and hundreds of thousands of PCs by addressing essential Windows software code as a virus and removing it.  In the end I spent perhaps 15 hours working on the fix, including 5 hours spent on tech support with a crackly connection to a lady in India.  And I am angrily awaiting the website to put up compensation request forms and the free McAfee for 2 years that they have promised to those so infected (after all, who better to have as your anti-virus program than one who screwed it all up and is watching its Ps and Qs because of the terrible mess it made).  Any way, it is running so far... though to be safe, I will eventually put in the new hard drive I bought and do a fresh XP Pro install.

The point is that this is a perfect analogy to the path of sin.  What Eve (and later Adam) saw as beneficial became their destroyer and we suffer the ill effects of this destruction as do all mortals (except Jesus, immaculately conceived).  What was thought to be beneficial, stole the present life with all its benefits and replaced it with a battle and struggle that has impacted every aspect of God's creation.  What was thought to be a gift turned out to be a curse worn by flesh and blood since the beginning of God's creation and mankind's first attempt to live in the tension between freedom and obedience.

Sin has stolen us from God, that is sure, but more than this, sin has turned what is truly beneficial into our enemy and we have distrusted God ever since.  The only trustworthy one has been covered with a veil of suspicion in our hearts because of sin and what is untrustworthy and deceitful has become the instinctive one we believe (our feelings, the lure of the temptor, the glitter of the world, the press of our peers, and that which is always hidden in darkness).

All in all, it was a terrible week for me and my PC... but it provided a helpful illustration that anyone with a PC can understand... those of you with MACs are like the Orthodox, you live in the West but you speak another language and therefore the analogies do not easily transfer...