Self-Preservation / Survival Instincts

Self-preservation is one of the highest drives of human nature.  (Protection of oneself from harm or destruction. The instinct for individual preservation; the innate desire to stay alive.)  I always liked that song by the BeeGees, “Staying Alive.” 

It’s what kept the pilgrims and the pioneers going.  It’s part of survival of the species.  

I guarantee if we were on the Titanic, we would have been looking for a life boat or a life jacket when it started going down.  I believe that part in the movie where the man tries to take Rose's life jacket away from her would probably be true.  And I just bet it may end up like Die Hard With a Vengeance where it becomes every man for himself.  Just a “gut” feeling of mine!  My understanding that only men got in the life boats because no one was in panic at first and it was an encouragement for the women to get in them with the children, because they really did not believe Titanic could sink.  Every boat can sink given the right happenstances, same way that our life is very fragile.

Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes. James 4:14

From the time my husband died (or I was divorced), self-preservation was activating in my life, which later becomes very necessary as a widow or single woman because eventually we need it for the amount of predators one comes in contact.   For me, self-perseveration is mostly related to getting my physical, emotional and spiritual needs met and making sure my children’s needs are met.
  

Abigail went against her husband’s Nabal wishes in the Bible to save and preserve her household when her servant reported what he did.  David was going to wipe out (kill) everyone.  1 Samuel 25

Then she told her servants, “Go on ahead; I’ll follow you.” But she did not tell her husband Nabal. 1 Samuel 25:19

Four years after I lost my husband, my friend Brandy and I went on this single’s adventure to New Zealand.  It was sponsored by the ABC show The Bachelor, and it was an incredible deal.  We were flying to one of the cities on a private tour, and the clouds were so very beautiful and I was looking across the clouds, and I said, “God this is so beautiful and peaceful, can I go to heaven right now?”  Right when I had that thought, at that exact moment, we hit this air pocket and the plane dipped down and my friend Brandy screamed.

Then I said, “God I really don’t think my friend Brandy is quite ready to go right now like I am ready to go.” 

If you ever watch that movie Leap Year where the woman is sitting on the plane headed to Ireland to propose to her boyfriend of four years, bad weather hits and the plane starts dipping down, and all the oxygen masks fall out and the woman says, “I want to get engaged, I want to be engaged before I go.”  It’s because women want to be engaged, some want to have children, and my friend Brandy had certain things she wanted to experience in life. 

I’ve already done everything I have wanted to do in life.  I’ve already had a great relationship and climbed Mt. Everest.  It helps having a new grandson, because my other two grandsons my husband was here so they are part of my grief in losing him, as far as he was so good with children.  It’s sort of like my life is on borrowed time. Paul said, “I desire to depart and be with Christ, but to stay here is better for you.” 

A scripture that has always bothered me is how Sarah obeyed Abraham knowing he told a half-truth to King Abimelech (Genesis 20:2) and she went to live in a king’s harem.  How can a person who loves their spouse put them in harm’s way? It bothers me that a man of “faith” did that to his wife.  A plague came on Abimelech’s whole household because of Sarah.  The Bible says that “love does no harm to its neighbor.”  The apple does not fall far from the tree in that Isaac his son did the same thing (Genesis 26:1-35).   Abraham was not ready to go, he wanted to preserve his linage, and  he still did not have the promise child Isaac.  

For this is the way the holy women of the past who put their hope in God used to adorn themselves. They submitted themselves to their own husbands, like Sarah, who obeyed Abraham and called him her lord. You are her daughters if you do what is right and do not give way to fear. 1 Peter 3:5-6

Even Jesus had self-preservation about going to the cross, but he prayed, “Let this cup pass from me, but not as I will, your will be done.”   Jesus was only 33 years old when he went to the cross.  I saw my father fight pancreatic cancer at the age of 77 years old and he was given six months to live and he lived l-l/2 years fighting cancer.   With my mother, it was different, she gave up to the will to live once she found out she had gall bladder cancer, and remarkably I saw her pass away in the hospital around two days later once she got the news it spread to her liver.  We all thought she just was getting her gall bladder out and it turned out to be cancer.  My mother just gave up the ghost.

Going a little farther, he fell with his face to the ground and prayed, "My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will." Matthew 26:39