Do as I ought, not as I do......

Conflict can be a bad thing. It can prevent us from moving ahead on something as we spend our time and resources trying to decide WHAT we should do, rather than actually doing what we KNOW we should do. Just watch the Parliamentary channel sometime if you want to see a lot of wasted time. I think that our Government would be much more effective if its members stopped bickering and squabbling for the cameras and directed that energy to more productive uses. But sometimes conflict can be good for us. When our inner self is very conflicted over a particular decision or choice we are trying to make, we can be torn as to how we should proceed. When we finally make a decision, we may later look back on that decision and wonder what the heck we were thinking.

The Book of Romans speaks to this topic in a section appropriately titled “The Inner Conflict.” A particularly relevant passage follows: “I do not understand my own behaviour; I do not act as I mean to, but do things that I hate... for though the will to do what is good is in me, the power to do it is not: the good thing I want to do, I never do; the evil thing which I do not want – that is what I do” Rom7:15, 18b-19

Here, in a few lines, is the ongoing human dilemma we face every day. We KNOW the right thing to do, but instead we do what we WANT to do. Now if what we want and know are the same, we have no problem. But more often that not, the two are different. After we act, we get that gut feeling of knowing we have not done the right thing. Call it instinct. Call it conscience. Call it God continually encouraging us to do what God knows we should do. Call it whatever you want. What we call it does not matter. How we respond matters. Are you and I willing to listen to the voice of God, the voice of reason, the voice of what we KNOW we should do? And are we willing to do it?

The next time I sit in church and ask forgiveness for the things I have done and the things I have left undone, I hope I can honestly say that I have listened to that inner voice and eliminated at least some of the conflict.