What Sleeping With The Enemy Is Really Like

No, this isn't a post about how my husband is really a horrible person and I'm crying out for help. Nope. Casey is great. Our marriage is great.

This post is about the real enemy I have to sleep with every night. Me.

I like myself plenty, so don't worry that I've got a self esteem problem or conflicting multiple personalities. What I'm talking about is the struggle that goes on inside myself as a person who wants to do good but doesn't always live up to it.

What Paul talks about in Romans 7:21-23: "So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members."

Years ago when I read C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity, I remember a passage about man's struggle with morality as evidence of a supreme being or ultimate giver of moral standards. The idea is something like, if there is no God and humanity is simply a cosmic accident, then why do people so often feel a pull toward a moral decision yet are incapable of following through with it?

For example, if the root cause of morality is just a mix of societal norms, family upbringing and desire for self preservation, then why do people wrestle with doing the right thing? If a person wants to do good, shouldn't it be easy? Why should there be a struggle? If a person feels like doing something selfish or cruel and gets away with it, why should they feel guilty afterward?

It's because we're not just minds living in bodies. We have spirits. Morality is not just cultural or subjective. There is good and evil. There is a war between the two. And the battle is raged inside of the person you and I go to bed with every night. Yourself. Myself. Us.

"For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms." Ephesians 6:12