The Enemy is Within

You take the blue pill - the story ends, you wake up in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill - you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. - Morpheus, from The Matrix

This has been one of the choices plaguing my mind during my current dilemma. I've started to judge my days by which pill they may be associated to. Usually a "blue pill" day would be probably the closest to "normal" or "good" as it will get. Those are the days when everything is going relatively smoothly, and the issues that have been dominating my thoughts are almost forgotten.

Then, there's the "red pill" days. These are days where I can't help but see the problems for what they are - often because they've manifested themselves in one particular way or another - and end up battling with myself over what or whether to do anything about them. Today so far has been a "red pill" day.

Nothing has really happened today to fire it off this time. Mostly it's just reflection on recent past events that brings my mind to spinning again. Then, I came to a disturbing hypothesis as to the reason that I am in such conflict with myself over what to do here. I am beginning to think my heart has already set itself on one path, while my spirit is desparately trying to move in another. Caught in the middle of this tug-of-war battle is are my mind and - more importantly - my destiny.

In this hypothesis (upon which I have yet to come to a solid conclusion which I would claim as truth) it would seem that my heart is set upon a path that is generally considered destructive, but would leave potential for re-building and a new beginning in the end. Of course, there would be lasting consequences as with any significant decision in life, but the end I would be left with more freedom to seek out a better future. My mind sees that potential and very much longs for it, but has yet to conclude whether the rebuild would be worth the damage that would need to be done.

My spirit wants to hold onto what is here, and strive to make it better. Ideally, this would be the best choice, since no lasting damage would be inflicted. However, not all of this is under my control and my mind has a hard time conceiving how many of the things that need changing could be changed. The mind worries that if the needed improvements cannot be made, perpetuating the status quo even in the name of restoration could have worse lasting effects than destroying and rebuilding it anew.

In the end, the resolution is up to God. The question now is, what is it that He wants to do here? Another question - What can He do here. Blasphemous as it may sound, I do wonder what are the limits that God has in changing a person. He created us each unique, with specific traits and a specific purpose in mind. Who are we to ask that He change any person? Are we to expect Him to say "Oops, my bad. Let me fix that for you." when in fact it is much more likely that we messed up His work?

Some may claim that you can't mess up God's will. He's too big and powerful to have His will affected by the actions of one person. While on a large scale that may be true, on a personal scale I beg to differ. We can mess up God's will for our lives. This was first proven in the Garden of Eden. I believe that free will was given to man as a gift, but we have turned it into our own curse with dire consequences.

God wanted us to live in a peaceful paradise where we could walk with him and converse with him every day. But, Adam - yes, I said Adam - dropped the ball on that one bigtime when he chose to ignore a threat to his household, and allowed the serpent to tempt his wife (with himself soon to follow) out of God's will. So, Adam and Eve were cast from the Garden forever as punishment for misusing their free will. The land that they were sent to was cursed so that Adam had to struggle laboriously for it to bear fruit. In similar fashion, Eve also was caused to suffer pain in bearing child.

Have I been cast from the Garden for my mistakes? Yes, Jesus did come to die for our sins, and rose again to return another day. Yes, we are forgiven and not damned to suffer in the eternal. Yes, through Jesus, we can have a closer walk with God. But, does that exempt us from the Earthly consequences of our actions? Most definitely not. Biblically, I cannot think of one example where a person was completely exempted from the lasting consequences of something they screwed up on Earth, even though they were forgiven in Heaven.

At the same time, we are told that God does not want us to live miserably. He wants us to have the "abundant life". While God's hand is necessary in the fulfillment of that life, our choices have drastic effect on the promotion or destruction of that life.

So - when faced with such a choice - how do you know you're making the right one?

Someone asked me awhile ago if I was okay. My response was yes and no: By reading my recent blog entries, I think any person can come to the conclusion that things are pretty messed up in my head right now. That's not OK. What is OK in me so far, is that I am still able to think logically and rationally when making decisions, and I've yet to make any significant moves based on emotion or sudden impulse. Hopefully, that will last at least until the right course of action is laid out and seen as such.

Meanwhile, I need peace.