Just Feel Better

She said I feel stranded

And I can't tell anymore

If I'm coming or I'm going

It's not how I planned it

I've got a key to the door

But it just won't open

And I know, I know, I know

Part of me says let it go

That life happens for a reason

I don't, I don't, I don't

Because it never worked before

But this time, this time

I'm gonna try anything to just feel better

Tell me what to do

You know I can't see through the haze around me

And I'd do anything to just feel better

And I can't find my way

Girl I need a change

And I'd do anything to just feel better

Any little thing that just feels better

~Just Feel Better, Santana & Steven Tyler

I love this song. I know, I know, I know Steven Tyler looks like some Halloween scarecrow on drugs in the music video, but it's a nice song all the same.

I guess the lyrics get to me. They remind me of when I was young and lost, how it was so hard to feel good.

How darkness was ever present to such an extent that I did not know how to live without it. How I was so comfortable with depression, it seemed like my twin.

I thank God those days are over!

I didn't realize how dark my life was until I got to know Jesus. It's very much like sitting in your room in the evening with the sun about to set; you never realize how dark the room is until someone switches on the lights.

And to imagine the multitudes out there who wander about in the darkness without even knowing that it is dark! These are the ones who would do just anything to feel better. Sadly, the things they do to feel better often end up making them feel worse.

The devil's vicious cycle.

Idolatry

But they put God to the test

and rebelled against the Most High;

they did not keep his statutes.

Like their fathers they were disloyal and faithless,

as unreliable as a faulty bow.

They angered him with their high places;

they aroused his jealousy with their idols.

~Psalm 78:56-58

Anyone who has read through the Old Testament at least once will notice a recurring theme: the rebellious spirit of the Israelites, God's anger, the Israelites' repentance, and God's saving grace.

The Israelites have witnessed, at first hand, how God miraculously delivered them from the Egyptians. They watched as God enabled Moses to part the Red Sea; they walked through the dry seabed, a tired but awed procession, vast walls of water on either side; and saw again the walls come crashing down on their pursuers.

Yet, once free, they forgot their God. They complained endlessly, looking back with longing to the days when they had enough meat to eat in Egypt.

But their worst sin was that of idolatry - a deliberate rejection of God Himself even though they had experienced His presence. Repeatedly, throughout their history, even after they had entered the Promised Land, the Israelites continued to turn away from God and His ways.

They worshipped idols - Baal and Molech and a host of others - all dumb, mute, blind. They rejected the One Living God for dead wood and stone.

It's easy to look at them with scorn, thinking self-righteously "If I had a personal encounter with God like they did, I wouldn't be like them! I wouldn't turn away to worship other gods!"

It's easy to say that we would have chosen to obey and worship God, because we saw Him part the Red Sea. The Israelites had all the evidence they needed to believe at hand.

And yet, it is precisely that which proves that evidence pointing to God's existence will not necessarily guarantee belief and faith.

We censure the Israelites, with their cold, hardened hearts, because they turned away from God even though they had witnessed Him at work.

But who are we to point fingers? Aren't we just as guilty as the Israelites are?

How many times has God parted metaphorical Red Seas for us? How many times have we felt His presence, experienced His grace and felt His love?

Yet we run after a new pantheon of gods and idols - Money, Power, Fame, and that awful god Self. We lust after them, our desires in tune with theirs, wanting only to satisfy their thirst.

The god Self crooks his finger, and we rush to Him. We think that he knows better than God does.

We forget just as easily as the Israelites forgot.

Instead of looking upon them with scorn, we should leave judgment to God and learn from their mistakes. We must continually ask God to sift our hearts and purify us so that we may never lust after useless idols!

The Taste Of Freedom

I read once that ex-prisoners, especially those incarcerated for long periods of their lives, have trouble adjusting to life outside the can. One guy, even after his release, only felt the urge to pee at a specific time of day, according to his 'schedule' in jail.

Let me just say, sans melodrama, that I understand perfectly how they feel.

The taste of freedom can be overwhelming. Our human mind is conditioned in such a way that it's sometimes hard to break out of a long-acquired habit.

I'm free now that the dreaded exams are finally over (the result is yet to be out, but that's subject for another blog entry...)

Free to pick up a book and read till my eyes hurt. Free to hang out with my friends or watch movies or just go to the beach and dream the whole day long without feeling a twinge of guilt.

But wait! Am I, really?

The day my exams ended, I headed straight to Popular to get Neil Gaiman's Anansi Boys. The next day, I picked it up, flipped it open...

...and my mind said Don't you have to study?! and I went Oh, yea, I have to study, DARN! and then Heyyyy waitaminute exams are OVER, what do you mean I have to study???!!!

See the wonderful power of the human mind? Now I have to retrain and reprogramme my mind and body, to get it out of that hyperalert, hypertense state it has been in for the last 4 weeks.

It's a task I know I'm particularly going to enjoy!