Reviewing 09' - Part 1 - Introduction

All my best ideas come from the shower. I’m not kidding. All my worst ideas and anxieties come out in the shower also; again, no joke. Should I call these waterborne day dreams revelations? Or an early morning curse from my subconscious? Or maybe it’s connected with the fact that I’ve just woken up and my mind is barely sober enough to determine what it wants to think about, and what ‘I’ want to think about. Or perhaps it is a partnership between the aforementioned and the Holy Spirit, meant to rouse me from my stupor. Trust me; no alcohol is involved, because as most people know about me, one drop of that stuff can put me in a world of hurt (allergies).

This morning as I scrubbed my oily hair clean with my standard Head and Shoulders a thought boiled up to the surface of my mind. And I use the term ‘boil’ quite metaphorically because that what happens with ideas and me. They sit, and I ignore them as long as I can, until I wake up one morning in a hot shower and the idea is popping up everywhere. Sorry, back to the idea. Some things are harder for certain people. And some things are easier for certain people. That’s it; that is the fullness of my thought. Disappointed? I am, having just written it and reading it over again. But I suppose it goes a bit further than I’m letting on.

When I say that some things are harder for some people, my mind is awash in all the things that are just…harder for me. I feel like I have a harder time than most making friends. I also feel like I have a hard time keeping friends than most. I have a hard time making quick decisions. I have a hard time keeping track of time, future dates, and other practicalities (sorry Susan!). I’m relatively confident that part of this is that I am a lazy slob and a horrible person. This doesn’t really make it acceptable; it’s just me saying that it doesn’t come as naturally to me as it might for others.

I have a pretty easy time thinking. About things. Many things; ideas, principles, applications, behaviors. In fact I’m often told that I think too much. Probably true. Or maybe it would be truer to say that I think too much about the wrong things. Earthly things; things that will pass away.

As I struggle against my old sinful self that seems to never die, I’ve come to realize that people who I might have cast judgment on in the past, have been in fact struggling against the very same limitations I am struggling against. I am a crazy man. I think of things to write about in the shower. I over think, am constantly afraid, have intense social anxieties, have a constant desire to prove myself, and can’t simply stop caring about what people think of me. No matter how hard I try. And there we come to it. I am a madman. However…I take heart in my shower based madness because I know that Paul has been there too (well…not the shower…or at least mine).

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.

If Paul is a madman and is man enough to confess his downright struggle against the limitations of our flesh, then I am glad to be in his company. The older I get, the more acutely aware I am of my own sinfulness. At almost every mental turn there lies a trap to ensnare me. Only Jesus can save me, and perhaps only he can make true sense of these blog entries.

Part 1 in a hopeful series. (And I mean that in two ways: one, I hope it has a hopeful tone, and two, I hope that I write another one to make it a series.) I am the son that ran away.