My Only Enemy is Me

Being honest enough to see the real danger to my peaceful life is the man I see in the mirror, sets me free to become who I am meant to be!

An old American comic strip called Pogo made famous an old saying from the War of 1812: “We have met the Enemy, and he is us!” We seem to thrive on keeping track of enemies, real and imagined. And by doing so, we think we are staying “safe.”

I always find it a bit ironic when the claims to safety are the loudest among people. It usually betrays a real character flaw and a lack of maturity. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t mean being foolish with our lives. But I wonder if the cries of “Safety” have devolved into a rhetorical device to avoid criticism or correction. “I don’t feel safe” has become the poster child of perpetual adolescence.

The truth is that getting my true enemies and real threats right is important. The inability to properly discern real enemies and real threats is at the heart of our current societal crisis of meaning. This poverty of discernment has led to the false notion that humans are our enemies, politics is our enemy, and people who “vote” wrong are our enemies. Today's challenge is the confrontation with the real enemy: ME!

Look at our Lesson today in Luke 10:16-21: