Trenton heard the commotion before he saw it. Quickly he turned the corner at the end of the hall and saw one of his friends pinned on the ground. Someone in a dark hooded sweater and blue jeans sat on top of his friend… raining blows down on his face and chest. For a split second Trenton tried to see who the attacker was…but the hood hung low over their eyes causing any identification to be impossible. Trenton also noticed more of his friends standing around the assault but not doing anything to stop it…their faces revealed terror and unbelief.
Move, Trenton thought to himself as he rushed the attacker…he leaned low and tackled him to the ground. The two slid across the cool linoleum a few feet before stopping. Trenton barely had time to regain his footing before the hooded nightmare was up and on top of his friend again. He brought his arm up to throw another punch but Trenton caught it and pushed the stranger away.
“Just knock it off, man!” Trenton screamed. His heart was now thudding against his chest…it was a deep pounding instrumental he had never heard before. He felt his body begin to perspire through his shirt as he sharpened his focus to see past the darkness of the hood. It’s weird that I can’t see this dude’s face, right? he thought.
“No,” he heard a deep but familiar voice say from within the hood.
Where have I heard that voice before?
He moved towards his friend again and this time Trenton was ready. He wrapped his arms around the attacker and with all his might slammed him against the wall in an attempt to keep him still. The attacker let out a single hiss from his lips before busting through Trenton’s hold and landing two hard blows to his chest. Trenton felt his body surge to life as adrenaline fueled him…he lunged, grabbing the attacker by his sweater and drug him to the ground.
If I can just keep him pinned until somebody can call the cops…the attacker was strong.
Trenton could keep him pinned for only a few seconds at a time before he was rolled over and forced to desperately pull his enemy back with both hands. What the heck did Jay do to tick this guy off, he thought. The attacker fought against Trenton with great rage in order to get to his friend…until finally he stopped…until finally the dark gaping hole where his face should have been turned to Trenton…and leaped on him.
Trenton thought it was amazing how much he could think while being beaten. He wondered why his friends wouldn’t help him. He wondered why the attacker seemed so familiar even though he had no way of identifying him. It wasn’t until he began to taste the slick metallic edge of his own blood that he finally found the strength to wrestle the attacker off him and pin him once more.
Without thinking Trenton clinched his hands into tight fists and brought down his most massive blows. He was not a fighter…his punches were sloppy hitting his target on top of the head, in the face, on the chin, in the side of the neck and in the chest…all the while his face remained behind a veil of darkness Trenton couldn’t see past. When he finally felt the attacker stop struggling beneath him Trenton stood up and made his way towards his friend.
“Are you ok?” he asked not noticing the silent movements of the hooded man behind him rise to his feet. It was only the fearful look in his friends eyes that made Trenton turn around.
The man brought up his hands and brushed the hood from his head…Trenton felt his body begin to shake as whatever strength he had before was gone. Audible sounds came from Trenton’s mouth…but no words.
It’s me, he thought. It’s me.
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I hope you don’t mind the world of fiction I created above…somewhere deep inside of me I find that I have stories to tell…and hopefully they’re stories (even if they’re, “out there” extraordinary stories) that comment on the realities we face in our everyday non-fiction lives.
In the story above we find our main character fighting a stranger with all he has to protect his friend…only to find out in the end that it wasn’t a strange attacker with a hood that he was fighting…it was himself.
In this story I needed something different…I of course wanted to bring to life the everyday battle each and everyone of us face against the darkness within ourselves that we’re born into this world with…sin. But I needed more than just a story about Trenton facing the darker shadow of himself…I needed that darker side, which will always be apart of Trenton, to be ruthless in his attack of his friend.
It’s so cold and unthinkable to even think about hurting someone we care about…but this is the nature of sin. Sin has no preference who it hurts…it has no feeling of guilt about who it destroys. Sin first wrapped its sticky fingers around the heart of man in the garden of Eden…an invisible monster that we helped create and strengthen…and we battle it everyday because in and of our own-selves…we can’t kill it…and sometimes we even choose to give into it.
I find it interesting how Satan has kind of paralleled his use of sin in each of our lives with what Christ presented to the Apostles in Acts 1 when He said, “And when the Holy Spirit comes on you, you will be able to be my witnesses in Jerusalem, all over Judea and Samaria, even to the ends of the world.”
You see, Christ gave a model of sorts for us all to follow in order to reach people for His cause…first starting within…in Jerusalem (or where ever your community lives) and then working our way out…spreading God’s Word and Message to the ends of the earth.
Satan uses sin in the same way…he starts within…and then works his way out…touching as many lives as possible…but it all starts within ourselves….a constant battle.
Paul speaks of the battle within, in Romans 7:
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What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can’t be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God’s command is necessary. But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can’t keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don’t have what it takes. I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.
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Can’t you just feel the hurt and desperation in Paul’s words? I mean, this is Paul! A figure in the Bible we all look up to…and in this passage we find the frustration He was facing from the power of sin within. But this is something else to remember…sin doesn’t seduce just us non-apostle types…it comes after us all. From the baby Christians to the greatest Spiritual giants…sin wages war within all of us…and it longs too fight…to wear us down…to take us to a place where we say, “Ok…I give in.”
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It happens so regularly that it’s predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God’s commands, but it’s pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.I’ve tried everything and nothing helps. I’m at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question?
Romans 7
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The reality is…we can’t win…we just can’t. Sin has always been here…and it will remain here after many of us have left this earth.
So we can’t win…at least…not alone.
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The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.
Romans 7
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Once again we find that the battle within is not fought and won on our own…it’s not like a movie where the good guy takes down the bad guy with grit determination and his ability to take a hit. Christ wins and has already won this battle with sin! Apart from God, we will find no true victory. Christ is our Warrior…our strength…our Victor.
If you want to stand a chance against the fight within…you have to go to God with it. And yes, I do realize that it’s not as easy as it looks written there…but a battle worth fighting is never easy…is it?
