The Pride Cycle

A long time ago, I recognized a pattern.  Maybe I recognized it because I was taught it in Sunday School, but it should be pretty evident for those who have studied history.  In Sunday School, they called it “The Pride Cycle.”  Historians would call it they cycle of civilization, or some such (like such as).  We should learn to recognize cycles in history, because, like abusers, abusive relationships or addictions, the only way out of the cycle, is admitting you are in it.

Here is a diagram of the Pride Cycle as I remember it in Sunday School:

You can guess from this illustration where we are.  If you just take the ‘religious’ words from each of the points in the cycle, you can see where a civilization would fit in: Prosperity>Pride>Destruction>Humiliation.

Whether you are a believer in the gospel or not, you must recognize the cycle in history or you are not learning the fundamental instruction of history: Those who do not learn it are doomed to repeat it.

Blame is not the answer.  There is no use in laying blame to one side or the other when you are caught in the cycle. An abuser might blame his victim, and a victim their abuser, but until one or the other leaves the situation, it will keep repeating.

God is not the author of confusion, and it seems plain to most of us that Washington is filled with confusion that doesn’t seem to be leading to anywhere in particular but constant (and you’ll hear this word a lot in the press) “meltdown.”  If we are always headed for a ‘meltdown,’ something is wrong.  There is a lot of something wrong in DC.

Entropy is a universal law.  Sometimes a forest has to burn down to be renewed. Sometimes a civilization has to ‘meltdown’ before it can be renewed.  But sometimes, like Ninnevah, a people recognize their problems, repent and renew their covenants.  Then they prosper.  Sometimes the abuser reforms.  Sometimes the abused escapes never to return. A counselor at a woman’s shelter will tell you that it can be done, even if it’s rare.  I hope we can become that rare exception.

 

Please don’t forget to visit my kickstarter project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1872789691/tell-me-the-stories-of-jesus-miracle-of-loaves-and