Reality Check!
There are many of you who will start to read this article and at a point not so far into it will consider to stop reading it. I know this because at one point in my life, I would have done the same thing. In fact, I may not have even started reading an article like this one because I knew that this type of article would make me think about myself… my true self. Now before you stop reading this article, ask yourself these three questions, “Why am I not going to finish reading this article? Is there something I am afraid of about myself that this article brings forth in front of me to confront that I don’t want to confront? Why don’t I want to confront it?”
Have you ever thought about your life? I mean really sat down and thought about who you really are and what needs you have that neither you nor anyone else on earth can provide? Seriously, have you ever really earnestly contemplated your life for an hour or even 30 minutes? How about for just 10 minutes? What about for only one full minute?
If you have not ever sincerely openly and honestly considered your life, you are not living in reality and are living a multiple life filled with deceit. I know this because I personally did not sincerely consider my life for many years and during these years my life was filled with deceit. It is to just a matter of degree in which you are living a multiple life filled with deceit if you do not openly and honestly contemplate your life.
Be totally honest with your answers to yourself as you ask yourself each of these questions. It is your life you these questions are asking about so you should know the answers. Are you truly honest enough with yourself to fully explore your answers?
Who are you really? Who are you when you are truly alone, all by yourself? What do you think about, what do you do, what do you care about, who do you want to be if…? Are you truly pleased with your life today? Are you doing in your life something that completely fulfills your desires? Are you thinking about others and are considerate to their needs or are you really just centered on your own needs? Are you truly content where you are right now in your life or is there something missing?
Are you being totally open and honest with yourself right now? There is only you and this article that you are reading so why not take this time to be totally open and honest with yourself? Is there you something you feel deep down inside yourself that needs explored?
Are you afraid? If so, of what? If not, really, are you not afraid to be honest with yourself? Are you being honest with yourself right now?
The time is now that you need to be fully and totally open and honest with yourself. Face reality today, here and now. What needs do you have that even if you had all the money, power, fame and fortune in the world, you would never be able to have those needs met?
For many years I hid behind an illusion. I was afraid to come out from behind this allusion. So when I caught myself peeking out from behind the allusion which I had made of my life, I was afraid to step totally out from behind it and face reality. Each time I would peek around, I would very quickly jump back behind the allusion of me which I had made of my life because I was afraid to face reality.
It was at the very lowest point in my life in which I took a peek around the allusion that brought me into harsh reality about myself. No, it wasn’t that I didn’t have education, success, a good job, status, food, housing, cars, boats, motorcycles, computers, etc. that made it the very lowest point in my life because I had all of these and much more. In fact, I was quite successful and had been checking off the items I acquired from my mental list of material wants as I acquired each of them for many years.
It wasn’t that my father was murdered that became the lowest point in my life either although I did use the act of someone murdering my father as the catalyst to which I would eventually lower myself to the very extreme lowest most point in my life. I had lowered myself to the plotting of murdering those who had been involved with the murder of my father. Not just a thought or two about getting revenge, I had a fully executable plan with timing and an alibi if I was thought of as a suspect. I had even made a few dry runs to work out the details and was in the process of setting up the actual event.
At that point is when for some reason I decided to take a little peek around my allusion to see my true self which led me to be for the first time in many years fully and totally open and honest with myself. When I was finally fully and totally open and honest with myself, I didn’t like what I was. Not only did I not like what I was, I was appalled about what I was and what I had made myself. I had made myself into a murder. The steps I took to get there all led me to where I was and I took each of the steps on my own accord.
Reality for the first time I truly faced and in looking reality in the face, I saw who I had made myself by my hiding behind an allusion. During all the years of my hiding behind an allusion, I had made myself into many different people. Instead of being just me, I had been subduing my true self behind the allusion I had made for myself. Being behind the allusion I told myself that I could have more friends, be liked by more people, be able to do more things, and be able to accomplish more than if I was just really being me without an allusion. When in fact, my hiding behind an allusion was just making me sink lower and lower into oblivion and while doing so I was denying anything at all was wrong as I was drawing more near to committing murder.
Here is your reality check. Are you hiding behind an allusion? You may think you are not plotting a murder at this time however, if you are hiding behind an allusion, are you really sure that you are not? If you are hiding behind an allusion you are murdering, YOU! Yes, you are murdering yourself if you hide behind an allusion. The real you is being subdued more and more with each passing day you hide behind your allusion of yourself. Although you may not sink so low as to plot the murder of another human being as I did but if you are living behind an allusion instead of just being yourself you may actually commit murder.
Neither of us is perfect. We each have imperfections and these imperfections are what make you and me unique. Living behind an allusion is only a cover up for not facing reality. Reality is harsh however living behind an allusion is even more severe. Living behind an allusion is more severe because it only complicates reality that much more. Reality is still reality even if you don’t admit that it is reality. For you to have any hope in your life, you must live in reality and not behind an allusion.
For true hope in your life you must admit the reality that Christ Jesus is the answer to all of your needs. Christ Jesus lived a perfect life for us because you and I cannot live a perfect life for ourselves. We have to have faith in Christ's life, death and resurrection so to have that link to God which Christ has because you and I can never be perfect. Our having faith in Christ Jesus fills us with the hope He promises.
I know that for many of you reading this article that admitting Christ Jesus is the answer to your needs is far more than what you can do right now. That’s okay although I’d really like it if you’d drop to your knees right now and confess Christ Jesus as your Lord and savior, you may not want to do that now or even ever because that is a choice for you to make for yourself and not for me or anyone else to make for you.
All I am asking of from you right now is that you step out from behind your allusion to take at least a few minutes after reading this article to be totally openly and blatantly honest with yourself and that you become yourself, your true self instead of an allusion which you have made up about yourself.
“But anyone who is alive in the world of the living has some hope; a live dog is better off than a dead lion. Yes, the living know they are going to die, but the dead know nothing. They have no further reward; they are completely forgotten. Their loves, their hates, their passions, all died with them. They will never again take part in anything that happens in this world. Go ahead—eat your food and be happy; drink your wine and be cheerful. It's all right with God. Always look happy and cheerful. Enjoy life with the one you love, as long as you live the useless life that God has given you in this world. Enjoy every useless day of it, because that is all you will get for all your trouble. Work hard at whatever you do, because there will be no action, no thought, no knowledge, no wisdom in the world of the dead—and that is where you are going.” Ecclesiastes 9:4-10