One of the worst enemies you'll face...

Sephiroth? Barney? Darth Vader?

One of the worst enemies you'll face in life is yourself. Sounds surprising..but not really when you stop and think about it. I mean, consider how many times you've managed to talk YOURSELF out of doing something that might have been beneficial? How many times have you come down on yourself as a failure? When you've taken a especially hard blow by life...how many times have you been there for yourself?

You know, one of the worst parts about all this is, not only does it bring you down mentally and spiritually, but you can score vicious "critical hits" on yourself if you don't change yourself. Critical hits are when after telling yourself that your a failure repeatedly you begin to compound the repeated damage, and eventually it reaches a 'changing' point where you critic yourself and experience a point of compounded damage that really strips you away in hurt and pain. It can cause you to do things that aren't you.


Permit me to explain critical hits, its a bit of a game jargon. In this one computer game I play, there is this ability for a unit called "Critical strike" which is a passive/aggressive ability. Its set so that it has usually around 20% chance to score a vicious 2 or 4 times normal damage multiplier with every hit you land. The compounded hit does massive damage over time.

The same is true of you when you critic yourself badly. You pull yourself down enough over time and then the chance of hurting yourself becomes even greater. I speak from painful experience, I far too often forget to check my thought when I fail at something that "I'm a failure", because its just not true!

I find it interesting in the scripture (particularly in Romans) where Paul talks a lot about the old self vs the new, and how we must die to the old self and take on the new. I was listening to a Linkin Park song a few days ago called "Numb" and the lyrics really made me think of this old self vs new:

"I'm tired of being what you want me to be
Feeling so faithless, lost under the surface
Don't know what you're expecting of me
Put under the pressure of walking in your shoes..
Every step that I take is another mistake to you.."

I..the REAL you, is tired of being what you (the old self) want me to be. Every step I take is another mistake to you (the old self). The chorus then bursts into what the real you is and needs to be saying to the old self:

"I've become so numb I can't feel you there
Become so tired so much more aware
I'm becoming this all I want to do
Is be more like me and be less like you"

I've become so numb! Old self, I'm becoming numb to you as Jesus fills me up. Its a tiring fight, but I'm becoming more aware, I'm becoming more like the real me, and less like the old you.
I know this is a rather unconventional way to explain, but this is just my thoughts. Take what you will from it; just watch out for yourself, when your caught in that failure and hurt, its not the failure itself you need to be worried about...its you.