I think Paul was onto something
Monday, January 31, 2005
Today’s quote is from Romans 7:15 - all about not being able to do the right things that we want to do.
It seems the my mind and my emotions are always at war. Why won’t they just settle down to some nice peace talks? Never! Even though what my brain wants to do is so clearly the right, good, SMART option, my emotions don’t seem to care about that and make it so difficult to actually DO the right thing. My emotions can even see the consequences of its selfish behavior but brazenly keeps pushing for its own agenda.
How do i rope in my emotions? Actually, should i rope them in? Maybe there’s a healthier way to deal with them than that. Maybe i can use the martial arts notion of using its own momentum against itself. Or maybe the Taoist idea of letting it flow like water, finding the paths of least resistance to find its own settling place. (I probably butchered that philosophy. Sorry to all you Taoist out there who are reading this!)
I guess this will be a short post sort of just ending in despair. Well, not actual despair. Just a cheap knock-off.
hey, it seems like you’re both an F and a T, just like me. it’s actually not that bad, cause you balance yourself out. although i know the struggle… those darn emotions are hard to control, huh? well, at least we have emotions, ‘n we’re not all logic =) heheh… you know what i’m talking bout! just think of it as experiencing life to the fullest =)
Posted by kimi on 02/01 at 07:18 AMOr you can digitize your emotions and put them on the internet… kinda like you just did. Now they’re “e-motions.”
Sorry. Wish I had something more profound to give but my I.N.T/F.P. personality hasn’t exactly figured that one out yet either.
Posted by on 02/02 at 10:37 AMI feel the pain! The seemingly endless tug between mind & flesh, or conscience and laze or emotion, etc.
I don’t think I understand it totally, but Paul writes a punchline to that whole dilemma, you know?
“What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God---through Jesus Christ our Lord!” (Rom. 7:24-25)
It’s not about whether we do right or don’t do right… then we live in ‘flip-flop’ and endless falling & getting up cycles. We know what’s right & wrong to do, but we do wrong anyway. Then when we do wrong, we’re racked with guilt and hang our heads. We resolve to do better, to listen to that voice better next time, etc. But we fall anyway. It’s like a trap. That’s why Paul said he felt wretchedly un-rescuable.
But through Jesus, thank God, we’re rescued. Sometimes we think that means, “God forgives us, and we have grace each time we fall.” So we add grace to the cyclic mix, and it becomes:
Fall--Feel--Guilty--Be Forgiven--Resolve to do better--Fall again and repeat the process.
Is this how God “rescues” us from the body of death? Goodness, I think I understand that this is not the way, but in my own life privately, I do the above “grace added to the mix” cycle. I can’t help being struck by the radical thing Paul seems to suggest.
Why? Because right after all this, Paul says, “Therefore there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit of life set me free from the law of sin and death.”
Life in the Spirit is something different than the tiring cycle we’ve all known so well. As I understand it, “life in the Spirit” is much more than listening to our consciences (folks had consciences before Pentecost, ya know). It’s like Paul is saying that because God sent Jesus Christ, we have a new way to live---in the Spirit, free from condemnation.
Not the old cycle.
Not the old cycle + grace.
But something apart from the trap.Lord! Reveal this to us! Break us and our understandings down so we can trust and believe for what we can’t even imagine or understand right now! Our frustrations are so cumbersome… we’re trapped between our flesh and the law. Set us free in Your Son, and help us remember and know in the deepest place of our hearts that we are *daughters* and *sons*, not servants who will be “let go” because we render bad service to You.
We’ve been bound to trying to live up to the code and unable to serve feeling completely free… so help us die (however painfully) to the old code and be set free to live in the Spirit, no matter what that means.
Thanks for Your faithfulness to work this all out in our lives. Put Your faithfulness always before my eyes, especially when I get distracted by the old body and think I’m trapped again.
(Fittingly, the anti-spam-bot word is “simply")
Posted by Ramone on 02/03 at 12:12 AM