There are very few things that make me angry. I've experienced them in more moments than I can count thus far this summer. It never seems as though I use to experience such sentiments in these particular moments. The moment I step onto the basketball court, competitiveness overwhelms me. I step into realms that are invidious -- realms that leave me at a completely different disposition than I normally embody. Even beyond that, they are realms that I am becoming more familiar with and boundaries in which I am beginning to accept a mutilating immorality. It seems to be an amalgam of a number of immoralities such as pride, independence, hatred, etc.
These sentiments are only present because of those around me, but they are not triggered by those around me. These sentiments are triggered by the thing called the self. It's an endeavor to overcome not those around me, but that of the self. My desire had never been to win just any game, but to win the game that I could not. I needed to prove something. In the end of the day, when the self has won, who has it proven worthiness to but it alone. What was the purpose of such a stifling emotional investment? The eventual revelation shows to us that it had been a farcical show where we imagined a sold out auditorium filled with masses of people, but in reality, there was nobody. Your mind has done trickery and your self has schemed some sort of design that leaves you beating the air. The battle against the self is always the most difficult especially in areas of life that are especially significant to the one contending against himself. Immediately, the emotions confuse the individual as he begins to attempt unraveling the enigma at hand. You ask questions such as why am I angry? Why did I want to win so badly? What was I trying to prove and who was I trying to prove such a thing to?
When all has been pieced out, there is a discovery. The devil could not deceive you face to face, so his design was to manipulate the self to manipulate the individual. It is not wrong to be honest with your feelings. This self-integrity is righteous, and truthful. It demonstrates the nature of our depravity. Let it be exposed. Though, if one was honestly sensing their desire to worship Baal and the Ashterah, they should not, by integrity to the self, submit to their emotions. In these moments, they are to recognize the bestial nature of the self and the seductive emotions in which the one is experiencing and subject these wretched things under the feet of Christ. The battle of the self is what we are all fighting because Satan has taken form in a fashion that we cannot recognize. If we are to contend, let us do so in something Christ has conveyed as worthwhile, and when we are honest, let us not be honest to ourselves, but let us be honest before the throne of Yahweh.
May God be with you in your endeavors against the self within you.
