just a passenger

Where do my wicked thoughts come from? They seem so alien and impure that I hope they are not from somewhere inside me, but I know they have to come from somewhere. How can this wickedness be there when I myself do not desire it? If my true self can feel so much pain and remorse from these thoughts, why did I have them in the first place? Thoughts of lust come in, take over, and leave; leaving behind feelings of being used and taken advantage of.  Sometimes when I am on my way to consume pornography it is as if I am not in control of my own body. My true self can be screaming that it doesn't want to take another step, but without the slightest hindrance to my movements I am carried along as a passenger.

I can't say it any better than Paul did in Romans 7:15-20:  "For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me."

What I really struggle with is what to do next. I know this is not where I am meant to stay. Paul later says in 8:12-13:  "So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh. For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live." 

I'm still at a loss on finding true freedom and putting to death the deeds of the body by the Spirit. After all these years of fighting what seems so simple, I still find it to be impossible. I am reminded of a quote in Confessions by Saint Augustine that said:  "Why then are you perversely following the leading of your flesh? If you turn away from it, it has to follow you."