When I was a child, I spake as a child, I felt as a child, I thought as a child: now that I am become a man, I have put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as also I was fully known.
1 Corinthians 13:11-12
Neverland Does Not Exist
Some people seem to be perpetually at odds with themselves; forever struggling, even at war with themselves and those around them, fighting to remain a child. I say struggle because physically, mentally and spiritually we are hard-wired to grow up, yet some folks refuse to follow the natural order of things. The temptation to ask why this condition exists, is very strong, but for one to keep one’s sanity, for one to keep hope alive, one must resist. There is but one thing left us who are forced to witness the mayhem and insanity: we are to pray that His will be done and that will be accomplished no matter what it takes.
Our Struggle, Our Fate
For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places.
Ephesians 6:12
If we refuse to acknowledge the simple fact that our struggle, our war, is not with flesh and blood, but against the powers that would destroy us – and often those powers are not always those from the super-natural realm – but most times those powers are those within us; our own base nature and that nature is to destroy. Unless we make a conscious decision to change, our fate is to languish in misery until we have finally succeeded in our own annihilation. All we have to look forward to is misery and then death.
That is not what is offered to us, but yet we choose it. Not because it is so desirable or irresistible, but because it is easy. And then, when we see our life has turned to shit we blame satan for being so horrible to us when in fact he had little or nothing to do with it other than to simply watch and allow us to amuse him as we destroy ourselves. We get mad at God for allowing things to get bad and go horribly wrong when His Love prevents Him from circumventing one of the greatest gifts ever bestowed on mankind: Free Will!
It takes a certain amount of courage to refuse one’s base nature. One of those elements of that base nature is fight and struggle against the flesh, whether it’s our own flesh or someone Else’s. When someone we’re emotionally invested in just doesn’t seem to want to row the boat in unison with us our first instinct is to fight with them and when we don’t get our own way we throw up our hands and declare we’re done. Again, it’s the easy way to go because we think we’re protecting ourselves and must move on in order to live, but what we fail to see in those moments is that when we give up on something we’re emotionally and spiritually invested in we not only rid ourselves of that which vexes us, but we also lose forever those parts of ourselves that we invested, and thus we’re diminished. If that isn’t bad enough, when we make the choice to struggle in and with the flesh, we’re going in completely naked and unarmed. The intelligent and informed first choice should have been to realize where the fight actually is and why it exists in the first place: in the spirit!