Mar 11, 2006

To me, temptation is a way of only relying on God for healing and triumphing over arduous situations and addictions.  Temptation can be strong as steel and weighing heavier than a few cinder blocks on my back.  Most of the time I find myself in impossible situations to even think about resisting such temptations is literally impossible in anyway of my human nature.  Therefore making it impossible to rely on myself for hope.   It is like holding a piece of breed in front of a starving man, and the tastier the food looks the more tempting.  The sad but true part is I know the food is poisonous (at least in most cases), but not for my body but my soul.  I find a part of me dying inside and as bad as that sounds it is anything but bad and wrong.  Anyone reading this is not fully aware of the feelings of death, but from what we have witnessed in our lives brings us to an easy hypothesis as to how death feels… and that feeling is not comfortable but painful and often excruciatingly dreadful.

            That part of me slowly decaying but still craving it's "food" is impossible to ignore… making it impossible to ignore God.  Unfortunately the body in this present day that I carry is like a hotel for the demons I have collected over the past few years.  The more I feed these addictions better known as demons the more the guilt rushes, pulverizes and torments my conscience in return haunting and weighing burdens on my mind.  As Kirk Franklin put it in one of his songs, "take it serious, the demons in a man's mind."  It is true… and as serious as a heart attack.

            Too often does it happen, and very overwhelming in stressful situations, but I find myself constantly in a classic cliché case of angel on one should and demon on the opposite shoulder.  While being under a storm of temptation I have a demon yelling in my ear and an angel whispering righteousness in the other ear.  The more I plead to God for help the louder the whisper drifts into my ear and the softer the yelling is heard.  I have yet to defeat an addiction, but it cannot be defeated in the push of a button.  Through experience I have also found it there is no mercy nor passion with the devil.  I find it wrongfully easier to defeat one addiction by only feeding another and making it even more powerful.  The devil has me running around a circular room telling me to find a corner.  The more I resist a temptation the next one will be twice as strong.  I can sit this mind numbing and energy consuming game out and just give up on what that angel from God has to share with me… or I can continue to walk with my heart.  By continuing to walk with my heart there is a reason given to me for these temptations shot at me like an assault rifle.  Perhaps God allows such pestilent thoughts to surround me but not consume me.  Perhaps there is a reason why I was made and for a purpose, and I do believe that purpose is to find and know God.  The more I feed my hungry addictions the more I hate them and the more guilt weighs on me.  With the guilt at times overwhelming God will not allow me to be totally consumed and entangled in sin.  But the more I focus on God; I am more to slowly understand what I was made to be.   This does not only apply to me but to all of human beings.  As long as I am flesh and blood, there is no escaping temptation… although there are times when I can run but cannot hide.    

We have pharmaceutical methods of eliminating pain in our body better referred to as pills or pain killers.  If we have a headache, no problem, just pop a couple pills and after a while it goes away.  Let's refer to more mental problems such as depression or other various grimacing issues clouding the inside of our brain with subnormal behavior.  Modern science has even created specific prescriptions for such problems.  Considering God has allowed our technology to advance in such ways of healing our pain in our body and our mind, at least temporarily…  what is there to heal a soul… spirit… or the inside of us that cannot be seen but is the core of our actions, feelings, and emotions?  There is a medication for corrupt, confused, and addicted to fleshly desires… it just doesn't come in pill form.  It is a form that cannot be seen but only explained… it's a pill that some people cannot seem to swallow but others receive it as a blessing.  I'd like to call it faith, but faith is only a part of it… call it the gasoline of this parable and consider Jesus the hotrod.  And as for that hotel of demons, Jesus is my dynamite at the base of that hotel and my faith is the lever to its intended purpose… and that purpose is to destroy what the Holy Spirit tells me.  It is no coincidence there is no medicine in pill form for a lost or broken spirit, there never is and never will be.