LUMPS

lumps

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“Hey c-mon”! – “We’re just leaving”! I said smiling on behalf of my friend and me. “We didn’t say you could leave Bra”!!! he yelled back. I assumed he was referring to me as Bro, although if someone would be willing to call me something that implies the relationship of a brother, I’d have thought he would have been a little nicer.

It was a group of guys, pretty certain that they were regulars, standing in front of the door to the seedy little bar in a pretty raunchy part of town. At this point I was wishing I’d have listened to my gut instinct and not gone into that dump…

“C-mon guys – we’re not looking for any trouble”! My buddy I’ll call Dan said. The biggest guy yelled back in finality, “WELL YOU GOT TROUBLE BRA”!!! He wasn’t lying…

Some lumps, blood, and a few dislocated joints later we left.

That’s usually how bad choices or decisions work I’ve noticed. The price of admission is free, it’s the price to get out that is painful and costly.

While I’d like to use the famous adage, “My momma didn’t raise no fool,” I can’t with a straight face, or with my fingers crossed. I really can’t blame my mom or dad, they did teach us right from wrong. They warned us of dangers, pitfalls, and lit the path to wisdom. I was looking for something a little more exciting… Like broken noses… I guess that’s better than a sharp stick in the eye…

Free will is quite a gift, but for those of us with less self control, it can be a double edged sword. How many of our problems, concerns, or issues are a direct result of our actions or by the choice provided by free will? Even in some cases, choices or decisions avoided that turned out to be the wrong move, ended with the same results.

Then there is my favorite, the choices made in haste with very little mental consideration given to the subject. This one is probably the most common among the majority of people in our society. This choice is founded in our human emotion and preys on our weakened and selfish flesh.

Although I always try to be honest and humble in sharing thoughts, honesty begs the truth. In truth, I might be considered an expert in these matters, certainly nothing less than experienced.

It is more common to hear talk of emotions in those of us who form our worldly perspective by how we feel or how we think things should be. The opposite of this mindset would be those of us who believe that if we let emotions control our lives, we’d make the mistake of not being guided first by principles, preferably moral.

Then there is the group of us that believe in the moral principle perspective, and control most of our emotions, but not all of them. This group doesn’t look or seem like the “emotional” type, but they too have weaknesses. Sometimes this group is referred to as stubborn, or reckless and while they don’t appear like the emotional type, they are, just in different areas.

The last group I believe is the strong self-willed group of us who follow the rules much like the brother in the story of the Prodigal son that Jesus Christ told, who in the end is exposed with a less than perfect heart.

All of us make up the groups of people described, just maybe in a slightly different way. As imperfect as we are, our hope is in the One who lives within us. It is HIs spirit that allows us to become wiser, and better.

Of all the choices we get to make in life, it really comes down to one…

Will we accept God?