Tethered to the Flesh

Greetings Dear Reader,

Sensing the changes impending
My thoughts are diffused by despair
I feel like I'm swimming straight up
Underwater
Desperately racing for air
I'm racing for air. – Dan Fogelberg

The thing about this world is that you cannot get out alive. We are all dying. How and when that process ends is mostly out of our control. During the time I have in this mortal coil I find that my constant search for peace is interrupted more by my own internal struggles than it is by anything else. I get in my own way on my journey toward Christ by allowing this internal war to influence my choices.

Galatian 5:17 Your corrupt nature turns against what the Holy Spirit in you wants, and what the Holy Spirit in you want turns against what your corrupt nature wants. They are in constant conflict with each other. As a result, you do not always do what you intend to do. – ATT

You see when I intend to do good and forget to listen to the spirit within me I do not do as I intended. When I start out with the best of intentions my fallen nature immediately goes to war against the voice of the Spirit in me. My mind thinks about what I will lose or what it will cost. My own needs look for some way to fulfill their wants. My anger and hurt look for a way to water down what Christ wishes me to do so that it will not cost so much. I constantly, foolishly look for a way out without dying.

The truth is that the journey is difficult enough without constantly trying to cling to a life that is over. I do not mean that I see actual death but I must run to the death of self that leads to a fuller life in the Sprit. Everything that crosses my path is intended to aide me in cutting my tethers to the flesh so that it has less influence.

I see that I go to such great extremes to not conform to the will of Christ and to feed the things of this life that do not matter. As I become more aware of this it becomes so obvious when others do it as well. We replace true faith and obedience to Christ with constructs of logic and reason the redress our private hurts and inner bitterness. We reject the truth that the only peace in this journey is constant conversation with Christ through the spirit. The joy is found in cutting every tether to the flesh that we can and embracing Christ alone as our source of life and succor.

During my hard times is when I finally see that we have so many loose ends that the Spirit has cut from the flesh that we can no longer truly reconnect to that dying body for answers. Yet too often I still see my fallen nature as the place for an answer when it can only be Christ that can carry me through the moment.

And the chords struck at birth
Grow more distant
Yet, we strike them again and again.
And we plead and we pray
For a glimmer of day
As the night folds its wings
And descends,
Exposing the loose ends. – Dan Fogelberg

Wishing you joy in the journey,

Aramis Thorn
Mat 13:52 So Jesus said to them, "That is why every writer who has become a disciple of Christ’s rule of the universe is like a home owner. He liberally hands out new and old things from his great treasure store."