I actually wanted to name this article A prison of your own as it is the same analogy I’ll be exploring today.
Theredpill on reddit often comes up as the #1 most hated sub, especially by other men. White knights and other men who curry to the favor of women are the most prevalent.
Why? They are trapped in their own minds. They want the world to work a certain way, and if it doesn’t work the way they want it to they hate it. As the Matrix analogy goes, they want and stick with the blissful ignorance.
The problem has always been, and always will be, mindset.
How do you change someone’s mindset? First, they have to want to change. Then they actually have to take steps to change.
It’s fruitless attempting to try to convince someone who doesn’t want to change. I have many obese friends who don’t care if they’re fat or not. They’re slaves to their gluttony. It’s not so much that they have a lack of self control (although that’s part of the problem), it’s that the food reward system in the brain releases dopamine when they eat something tasty and they “can’t help themselves” to just eat more. This is not an excuse though; those on heroin and other addictive drugs have the same thing. Often times we must recognize that we cannot do things of our own will and ask God and others to be our ‛êzer.
H5828 — ‛êzer — ay’-zer
From H5826; aid: – help.
Some of you may recognize that êzer is the Hebrew word that is used twice for “helpmeet” when God created woman. The other 19 times it’s used in the Old Testament from the Pentatuch to the Psalms and the prophets it that it is used in conjunction with God being our help in times of trouble.
Likewise, everything that Jesus taught is all about mindset.
Why does Jesus always talk about faith that can move mountains? Why does He talk about seek and you will find, knock and the door will be opened, etc? Why does He talk about you have to lose your life to gain it?
Do not kill? Much more than that don’t even let the sun go down while you’re angry. Do not commit adultery? Much more than that don’t even lust after a woman (or look after her longingly). Cut off your limbs if they’re causing you to stumble.
The mind is such a powerful thing that it creates within a person a prison of their own reality.
JoJ wrote in his post yesterday:
What I have come to realize is that I was in a prison of my own making. All my attempts to ignore or blame women caused me to fantasize about them more. By making them unapproachable in my mind, I had inadvertently placed them on the pedestal, made them into more than they were. Women had become this unknowable but deeply desirable thing that I would never have or truly understand. Sounds a lot like what God was supposed to be.
There’s no tangible thing that makes someone “alpha” or that makes someone “beta.”
The difference is all in the mindset, and the practice of the mindset. If I self believe that I’m terrible with women or that I don’t understand women, that’s probably going to be a self fulfilling prophecy.
In essence, this probably sounds like new age mumbu jumbo, but really if you can free the mind you can free the person. The reason why we are so limited (or have so little faith by Jesus’ measure) is that we don’t truly believe the power of God, or His purposes for our lives. We don’t seek direction from Him, and we don’t even think about what He wants us to do daily.
The curse of the bountifulness of Western Civilization is that we have the mindset of “I’m in control of my life, and God is just an accessory to my life.”
This is the mindset of Churchianity. How else can wives justify to themselves that God wanted them to divorce? How else can so many in the Church believe that premarital sex is not wrong? etc.
Likewise, the deception that we grow up under is the thinking “how do I want my life to go?” or “what do you want to be when you grow up?”
Even among devout Christians I’ve very rarely seen Christian parents tell their children to read the Scriptures and pray what God wants you to do with your life.
I’ve personally gone through at least 5 changes in what I wanted to do from when I was a kid to make it where God is calling me in my profession today. I’m sure there are people with more. Indeed, I still really don’t know what He has called me to beyond the couple of projects I have now. Likewise, my pastor has an engineering degree and an MBA, but after school God called him directly into ministry.
Was it a mistake for him to go to school for engineering and an MBA? Certainly not. He now has good opener to share the gospel. When we’re not considering what God wants us to do, when He grabs a hold of us we often have these huge changes in direction from what we wanted to do as opposed to what He wants us to do.
This is part of the witness that we have to others. God can use any of us where we are, as long as we are willing to submit our lives to him. To place Him on our pedestal.
I never really thought about going on a missions trip nor did I want to, but last month I went on one. I never thought I’d be helping to lead a small group nor did I want to, but I’m now helping to lead one. God calls us to do different things, and we need to be sensitive to what He wants us to do even as we are stewards for Him in this world.
One of the stories I heard down on the missions trip to Central America is that several years back a young woman who had just graduated from college went to one of the remote tribes that had never had outside contact. She stayed there for a couple years, learned the language and served them and shared the gospel. Honestly though — who in their right mind would do that except God calling them to go and do it? That’s the power of God moving in someone’s life who is submitted to His will.
If you don’t know what your mission is from God then pray to him that you receive it, and that He starts to open up doors for you. This is the reason why we pray in the Lord’s prayer that “Your kingdom come your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.”
Not my will, Lord, but Yours.
Christianity and masculinity 
I have noticed that most men need a taste of success before a mission can come into view. I don’t know why, but men who experience success with women often find that their life becomes more focused and clear once women are behind them.
@ JoJ
I don’t doubt it.
Men who perceive they are helpless tend to be slaves to their lusts. They think what they have no control over is above and beyond them. Thus, women are on the pedastal instead of God.
This is a little to the side, but it’s one of the issues you’ll encounter in all of this, so I feel the need to point it out.
I call it “Theology of the Little Things”. One of the problems Western Christianity has is a view of God’s Power as a Disaster Movie special effect. There’s a reason the story of Moses is so popular, even in media. Big, big things are happening.
But God and the Spirit are with us, always. God is in the “Big Things” and the “Little Things”. The point, in the modern view, of eliminating God in the “Little Things” is to allow for our personal Choices to dictate our outcomes in life. Suddenly “doing what I want” becomes “I’m doing the Lord’s Will!!!”, when it’s actually our own pride, arrogance and Sin.
The problem, even further, is it denies the Lord’s Will even in the work we do. God might want you to be the best interior designer in the Tri-State Area. By not going out on the mission field for 30 years, you haven’t denied the Lord’s Will, but you’ll get that impression from a lot of Christians. This denies where God works in the world. Someone needs to plow & water the fields, literally, for there to be food. So how is being a life-time farmer not a calling? Nehemiah was in his place in the Royal Court so he could go build a Wall. A Wall. God’s Will in his life was Wall building.
We deny God in the “Little Things” so we don’t have to listen. God gets “out there” and not “right here”. Because if God is “right here”, then we have to listen. And listening is what we don’t want to do in the modern Age.
On the more practical, God is also the “God of Biochemistry”. He has made his wondrous Creation, yet we barely acknowledge the depth of what he has done. This is why turning to God, placing your focus on His Will and growing in Spirit is so important. It actually changes your Biology. In ways that aren’t technically possible, by modern scientific understanding. The Spirit’s Power is transformative in ways that *nothing* else on this World is.
When God is leading you, God is with you. Yes, there are tough times, as conforming the Flesh to the Will of the Spirit isn’t normally pleasant, but God will see you through. You just need the Faith to keep walking.
He’s an analogy those lurking might find useful:
Most Christians, when looking for God’s help (because they’re desperately need it), end up like someone waiting for an elevator. However, they won’t read the Sign that says “Press the Button to call Elevator”. They wait. They complain. They cry out at God, wanting to know why God hasn’t sent the Elevator. The Elevator might eventually show up, but on its own schedule.
The faithfully walking Christian, in the same situation, will read the sign, push the button, then wait. If it’s taking a while, they’ll go to the front desk and ask if there’s a problem. The front desk will tell them that the Elevator has to cover many floors, but it will come to them at the ground level. So the faithful Christian waits, praises God for giving us the Elevator because they can’t walk the 75 flights of stairs. And, when the Elevator arrives, they’ll find the person they were going to see arriving on the other side of the elevator door, as the Lord was doing the work they could not.
Revelation 3:7-8 KJV:
“And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write; These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth; I know thy works: behold, I have set before thee an open door, and no man can shut it: for thou hast a little strength, and hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name. ”
Never short change God. What he asks of the Christian that is listening might be strange, it might be simple, it might be grand, but what *you* need to do is what God *told* you to do, not anything else.
Oh, and “Philadelphia” is “Brotherly Love”. Think about that.
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