The Enemy Within...

Feels so nice to get back to writing my blog. As I look over my shoulder, I see that it has been a hectic year and yet a year filled with moments of quiet reflections. Just wishing all of them were penned down, but here's my latest reflection and if it happens to be yours too then I'm sure reading this will reinforce your resolve to move on.


Of late, I have been pondering over the way life has taken turns, some for good and some otherwise. It has helped me review my life and figure out areas where I have gone wrong. Having identified mistakes and wrong patterns in my life, my consequent move should have been to diverge from such ways into ways that are good and productive. I made some great decisions to get certain things going and get some things out of the way, but there was not much change. Most of the times they have stayed only in the vaults of my thoughts but never got translated into actions. But with much prayer and constant self reminding I have managed to break away from quite a few unproductive ways to re-chart my life. That has given me a lot of joy which has energized me to press on. Decision to do something does not mean that the thing is done. It takes time and effort to act on intentions and accomplish  something. How often we fool ourselves to think that we can impress God by our intentions and well meaning prayers! While it may be easy to put on an impressive external, the Omniscient God actually sees deeply through our facade and knows us just as we are.

As part of my life review, I was also identifying the causes for some of the worst failures in my life. My 'old man' constantly tried to put others and circumstances to blame. But my new resolve gained through much prayer and submission to God helped me to realize that I, ...was the cause for a number of those failures and bad patterns. While it is so easy to look at the faults of others, it takes courage to face oneself and say 'I'm wrong'. So I concluded that most of the times the enemy was not without, but within. How could I have become so blind to myself and my own errors. The cause for all this was "self", which so often prevents you from facing the reality of your own failures, but is so quick to fix the blame on things other than you. While the concept of loving oneself is good, it should actually help us to evaluate ourself and know ourself properly which is critical to move forward.

So after all the soul searching, I knew it was time to move on from those self defeating ways and not get into the deception of "mere intentions", but to move forward to the plane of action where there is meaning, challenge and joy of accomplishments. The apostle James says it beautifully that faith without works is dead. The other deception here is the deception of self righteousness, where you feel great about having confessed your misgivings and sins. Confession helps you find forgiveness and healing, but actions are essential to cross that bridge of sin and hurt. Be careful not to stop with your intentions!!!

Paul says I have crucified myself with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. When we come to that maturity then we can beat the worst enemy - " Our self" and be successful by surrendering everything to Christ and allow him to be the driver who leads and guides us into paths of hope, victory and joy even when things do not look all that great!

When we constantly live under the realization that Christ is the center and source of our living, then it gives us the impetus to move forward and do something and of course not forgetting, beat the enemy within. I want to leave you with a song that has this reflection of identifying your failures and the enemy within, not to get stuck in the miry failures of the past, but move on with God's help. As we pass through this season of advent towards the dying moments of 2014 let's get this resolve to translate good intentions to actions and thus move forward! God bless you!!!