The last post was heavy to write about, let alone think about. I had to follow it with a story about finding the solution. It started with a young man wanting to be physically and mentally strong to keep from being picked on.
He chose the name Ronin after the samurai class that answered to no one. A 
simple beginning of just wanting to be stronger led to arrogance, and then seeking to justify it, he constructed a mythology around himself. Ronin became an anti-hero in his own mind, his costume the tattoos of his values on his arms. He became self-righteous and judgmental, but remember how the reformer type turns into an individualist under stress?
Ronin had always been trying to find himself, make himself better, but his self-centered nature made him his own worst enemy. Then one day, forced to acknowledge that he was nothing, his life was an illusion, and the anti-hero was not a hero. Just another person with cranial-rectal inversion. Any power he may have had was in his head as he was humbled by the world’s immensity.
The stress arguably broke him, repentant; he went back to the drawing board. Not to soul search; he already knew what he had to work with. He needed a direction. He searched for a purpose, to be a good man, and he started designing it. In the place of the previous purpose and narcissistic principles, he put rules in place to keep himself in check. Still operating under his own strength, still with the same nature, just leashed; terrified of going back he started to become judgmental again, leaning toward puritanical. It is hard to fight the darkest part of your nature.
How do you deal with it? He accepted an offer to have it killed, to take all that he deserved because of it and let someone else take the hit. Sounds like a good deal, huh? Having tried it on his own, failing every time, he asked for help again and got it. Not only was his dark past cleared but so was the future. The dark side of him weakened is still there, and a new nature was in place. Jesus’s virtuous nature in the form of the Holy Spirit reminded him when he stepped towards the darkness and empowered him, to stay away.
It made him easier to be principled, enabling him to care, to help. He had been good so far about not being bogged down in legalism so self-righteousness cannot get a finger hold. He just really watched three rules: loving the God who created and saved him by following Him, loving others by treating them as he wanted to be treated, and to not trip others up by saying one thing and doing another that is counter to it. He remembered the fact that he had been broken so he had nothing to be self-righteous about; he did not save himself. It was through Christ who had strengthened him.
This was more than a story. It was my life. That is how I dealt with my nemesis; I asked for help. I have not regretted it at all. There is still room to grow at that and strength to make it happen.
A Ronin's Journey 