Originally Posted by believer
As a recovered addict, I just have to say that EP's don't help unless you are attending a 12-step or SA program.

Someone quoted Romans 7:15-24

Romans 7:15-24 (New International Version)
15I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. 16And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. 17As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. 18I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. 19For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do�this I keep on doing. 20Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.

21So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. 22For in my inner being I delight in God's law; 23but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. 24What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

I guess Nipsy Russell said it less scripturally but no less biblically: "The devil made me do it." I used to laugh at that line. Now I know why. It was an example of using the conflict between good an evil within all of us to justify evil. Well, I don't and can't cater to, or "laugh" at that kind of thing any more. It makes no difference what truths any prophet or any disciple might have written in the bible or anywhere else other than as a nice description of the inner struggle we all face and learn to deal with in one way or another. For me, SMB probably sums it up the simplest. "Just DO IT." Do the right thing, and it will become its own reward in life, not in some afterlife. Hell is a place we go right here where we are living on this Earth, when we make the wrong choices. I have gotten myself there, and I intend to claw my way out. At the tender age of 62, I understand what it takes. Just DO IT.

Please don't take my response as an argument or a judgement of the scripture you quote. Those quotes are obviously profound. Thank you for them. The choice remains within this life, I am sure you would agree, but the consequences and rewards are, too IMO. I will be making the right ones. Of that, I have no doubts.

- GM

FWH, age 63. 24 years of narcissistic behavior, infidelity, and emotional abandonment of my BS, age 57, DancesWithGoats (DWG). D-day two years ago, leading to emotional breakdown. Been working MB program and toward spiritual transformation and personal growth since then, with some slow but real progress. DWG still with no trust, but with grief starting to subside a bit.