Saturday, November 9, 2013
Sunday, November 3, 2013
My Natural Man
So ... we read in the scriptures that, the natural man is an enemy to God and has been from the foundation of the world and always will be and unless a man yields to the enticings of Holy Spirit.
Today I found myself in the doldrums as has been common of late. My dear sweet girlfriend has been helping me in so many ways I could never repay her for the blessed help she is giving me, not in a score of eternities. This help has involved a hard and heavy realization that I am simply horrible at a number of keys things in life due in large part to laziness, and also that I have misunderstood life in such a fundamental way that I am forced to rewrite my entire definition of life and what it means. Now do not call this an injustice of someone forcing their views on another and the subsequent extinguishing of those views previously held. I have known this for most of my life but have never been told how to deal with it let alone what the issues at hand were. I now understand why I have struggled for so long. I was lazy, the average person has thought their way out of these issues by their mid teens, I have not.
I have long thought about my natural man. I do not want to be an enemy to God, I want to be His friend. I want to be one of His best friends. I want Him to be so proud of me that when I cross His mind a big grin washes over His glorious face. In thinking about my natural man I have known that I not only need to vanquish him but that I also want to, and desperately too. I have been thinking that I want to vanquish him so completely that I could almost be tried for murder. I know that when my natural man is gone only then will I know myself. I am a son of the Eternal God of the heavens above and the earth beneath. As such I am a brief passerby in this mortal tale. This mortality is not who I am, it does not and will not define me. It will aid in the definition of who I am, but it is not the definition. I am a crown prince of the Royal God of Eternity. Until I know who He is I can not truly know who I am. In coming to know my natural man I am given the unique power and vision to behold the devil on one hand and the saint on the other. You can not truly know the one without the other. In the realization of the natural man we gain the power to defeat him and then become as God-like as possible. For this reason the natural man is an enemy to God, not just because of his ungodliness but because with his presence in our lives we have not proved ourselves to be Gods' friends.
I must eschew the natural man. As I do so I will not only come to know myself but I will fulfill a dream I have dearly and quietly held onto for many years. I will be a guiding light to everyone around me. I do not really want people to see me when they are around me and also conversing with me. I want them to see the Father. A crazy notion and ideal perhaps but one I hold dear none-the-less. In that dream I have known that I could never accurately portray the Father without knowing Him. I also knew that I would never be able to fix a problem I have long had. People do not know me or know who I am. Not even my close friends know me. They all know different facets of myself, but no one knows me truly. And why do they not know me? Because I am still discovering who I am. I am changing from day to day, wildly so at times. I am trying to find out who I am and for that reason people do not know who I am. Till I come to the point where I am not the mirror of God but a portal to Him people will not know who I truly am. People when they see me will not see me but see Him. But first I must know who my natural man is. By coming to know this part of me I can come to know God.
So after talking with the girlfriend today in rather long intervals about a lot of the issues currently plaguing me I had to go and literally run off a lot of depression, sadness, and stress. I have used running medicinally for many years in situations such as this. While out, I found myself briskly running the empty and dark beach front in San Francisco before resting a bit at my turn around point. I was speaking with God voicing the desires of my heart, how I wanted to be so much better and so much more than I currently am. As I began to run back home just as quickly as I had run out a new definition of the term "natural man" dawned on me.
I have been lazy slothful my entire life. My natural man is not one that is prone to lust after riches and the things of this world or to sin with women, it is not one who tells a lie or even covets anything. And there-in is my natural man. A man who desires nothing. One who knows his divine potential yet does nothing to seek after it. I have no passion in my life. I have interests but no passions. I have no reason for which to live. I have no drive for anything. I do not engage my mind. I do not pay attention to what I say let alone to what others say. I do not believe what I profess to believe, and I do not know how to get away from this all. My natural man is nothing at all like I had always envisioned him to be.
The vanquishing of my natural man is going to be long, it is going to cost me a lot of effort, and I will be frustrated quit often. But it must be done. I have to engage my god-given mind every moment of every day, I have to be inquisitive on everything, asking why this and why that rather than just taking it all as it is through my warped views and understanding of the world. I have to learn to learn, I have to learn how to communicate with others, I have to find out what I am passionate and driven about in my life. I have to find a reason to be happy each and every day and not be dreary. My natural man does not crave naked pictures of women or empty bottles of drink, it does not seek after power or the pain of others. I love everyone, I truly do, more so than most think is prudent. My natural man is the one that has bound me to my current state of complete laziness. The one so powerful that I do not even know where and how to begin to change for the better. My girlfriend has enlightened me on all of these faults, painfully so for the both of us. And for this she has now empowered me with the tools I need to at least begin to change and fight back against my natural man. I will one day care about everything, I will ponder upon everything, I will try my hardest at everything, and I will be a positive influence in the lives of those around me. That one day is on the horizon, I can see it. I have no idea how far away it is but I will race towards it with all of my strength each morning all day long.
I have to go train now. A long fight awaits me and I must be strong enough to be the victor. I hope that we all can discover who our natural man is. Like me yours may not be bound to common sins. My natural man is not a lover of sins of commission but of omission. As we try and are blessed from heaven above we will find that, as it is written, God gives us weaknesses that they may be made strengths. He will show us our weaknesses and then help us to make them strengths. One bright and glorious future day I will be free from the oppression of the natural man and be free to change the world for the better as my soul longs to do.
Today I found myself in the doldrums as has been common of late. My dear sweet girlfriend has been helping me in so many ways I could never repay her for the blessed help she is giving me, not in a score of eternities. This help has involved a hard and heavy realization that I am simply horrible at a number of keys things in life due in large part to laziness, and also that I have misunderstood life in such a fundamental way that I am forced to rewrite my entire definition of life and what it means. Now do not call this an injustice of someone forcing their views on another and the subsequent extinguishing of those views previously held. I have known this for most of my life but have never been told how to deal with it let alone what the issues at hand were. I now understand why I have struggled for so long. I was lazy, the average person has thought their way out of these issues by their mid teens, I have not.
I have long thought about my natural man. I do not want to be an enemy to God, I want to be His friend. I want to be one of His best friends. I want Him to be so proud of me that when I cross His mind a big grin washes over His glorious face. In thinking about my natural man I have known that I not only need to vanquish him but that I also want to, and desperately too. I have been thinking that I want to vanquish him so completely that I could almost be tried for murder. I know that when my natural man is gone only then will I know myself. I am a son of the Eternal God of the heavens above and the earth beneath. As such I am a brief passerby in this mortal tale. This mortality is not who I am, it does not and will not define me. It will aid in the definition of who I am, but it is not the definition. I am a crown prince of the Royal God of Eternity. Until I know who He is I can not truly know who I am. In coming to know my natural man I am given the unique power and vision to behold the devil on one hand and the saint on the other. You can not truly know the one without the other. In the realization of the natural man we gain the power to defeat him and then become as God-like as possible. For this reason the natural man is an enemy to God, not just because of his ungodliness but because with his presence in our lives we have not proved ourselves to be Gods' friends.
I must eschew the natural man. As I do so I will not only come to know myself but I will fulfill a dream I have dearly and quietly held onto for many years. I will be a guiding light to everyone around me. I do not really want people to see me when they are around me and also conversing with me. I want them to see the Father. A crazy notion and ideal perhaps but one I hold dear none-the-less. In that dream I have known that I could never accurately portray the Father without knowing Him. I also knew that I would never be able to fix a problem I have long had. People do not know me or know who I am. Not even my close friends know me. They all know different facets of myself, but no one knows me truly. And why do they not know me? Because I am still discovering who I am. I am changing from day to day, wildly so at times. I am trying to find out who I am and for that reason people do not know who I am. Till I come to the point where I am not the mirror of God but a portal to Him people will not know who I truly am. People when they see me will not see me but see Him. But first I must know who my natural man is. By coming to know this part of me I can come to know God.
So after talking with the girlfriend today in rather long intervals about a lot of the issues currently plaguing me I had to go and literally run off a lot of depression, sadness, and stress. I have used running medicinally for many years in situations such as this. While out, I found myself briskly running the empty and dark beach front in San Francisco before resting a bit at my turn around point. I was speaking with God voicing the desires of my heart, how I wanted to be so much better and so much more than I currently am. As I began to run back home just as quickly as I had run out a new definition of the term "natural man" dawned on me.
I have been lazy slothful my entire life. My natural man is not one that is prone to lust after riches and the things of this world or to sin with women, it is not one who tells a lie or even covets anything. And there-in is my natural man. A man who desires nothing. One who knows his divine potential yet does nothing to seek after it. I have no passion in my life. I have interests but no passions. I have no reason for which to live. I have no drive for anything. I do not engage my mind. I do not pay attention to what I say let alone to what others say. I do not believe what I profess to believe, and I do not know how to get away from this all. My natural man is nothing at all like I had always envisioned him to be.
The vanquishing of my natural man is going to be long, it is going to cost me a lot of effort, and I will be frustrated quit often. But it must be done. I have to engage my god-given mind every moment of every day, I have to be inquisitive on everything, asking why this and why that rather than just taking it all as it is through my warped views and understanding of the world. I have to learn to learn, I have to learn how to communicate with others, I have to find out what I am passionate and driven about in my life. I have to find a reason to be happy each and every day and not be dreary. My natural man does not crave naked pictures of women or empty bottles of drink, it does not seek after power or the pain of others. I love everyone, I truly do, more so than most think is prudent. My natural man is the one that has bound me to my current state of complete laziness. The one so powerful that I do not even know where and how to begin to change for the better. My girlfriend has enlightened me on all of these faults, painfully so for the both of us. And for this she has now empowered me with the tools I need to at least begin to change and fight back against my natural man. I will one day care about everything, I will ponder upon everything, I will try my hardest at everything, and I will be a positive influence in the lives of those around me. That one day is on the horizon, I can see it. I have no idea how far away it is but I will race towards it with all of my strength each morning all day long.
I have to go train now. A long fight awaits me and I must be strong enough to be the victor. I hope that we all can discover who our natural man is. Like me yours may not be bound to common sins. My natural man is not a lover of sins of commission but of omission. As we try and are blessed from heaven above we will find that, as it is written, God gives us weaknesses that they may be made strengths. He will show us our weaknesses and then help us to make them strengths. One bright and glorious future day I will be free from the oppression of the natural man and be free to change the world for the better as my soul longs to do.
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