Joyful Transformation

Are there any Princess Bride fans out there? Do you remember the scene after Westley (AKA the “Dread Pirate Roberts”) has bested the Giant and is now involved in a duel of wits with Vizzini (the guy who kept saying “inconceivable”). Vizzini is so sure of his superior intellect that he enters this duel uttering one of the many classic lines from the movie; “You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is "Never get involved in a land war in Asia." But only slightly less well known is this: "Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line." He laughs and then falls over dead from Iocane poison.

Have you ever entered a duel of wits? Have you ever been so busy “not liking” someone and the way that they do things that you unwittingly allow them to manipulate you by over-thinking and questioning yourself? Suddenly you forget all the things you know to do that are right, that are proper form, etiquette, whatever and you become involved in besting this person with your superior intellect, wit or skills…? Or is that just me? Sometimes the more I think the other person is wrong or detestable the more I am affected, the more I become what I am trying to defeat.

I think that perhaps that is why God so hates the sin of pride. He wants us to lean on him. He is the answer to defeating what is wrong, what is bad, what is ugly. Turning the other cheek is not always the easy thing to do. Many times for me I would say that it is down-right impossible. But I believe that we are told to do that for a reason. I believe it may be the only way we can defeat pride in our lives.

Ours is such a society of competitiveness (I know, I know, I have talked about this before!). Satan and his minions are well aware of how competitive we are. They know that we have an incredible sense of “fair-play” that becomes outraged when others don’t play that way. Anger, resentment and pride will quickly rot any fruit of the Spirit that is trying to live in us. Sometimes the stakes are high and the anger is justified, but we cannot allow Satan to take us out of our game. We have to continue to use the armor that we have been outfitted with. Some people are sadly overtaken by evil and we will never, ever be able to change that, but we can keep them from taking our hope, our light, our goodness away from us.

Maybe by writing this down today it will sink in! I sure need to learn this lesson!