Gods save sentient beings. We have choice, and ignorance. Learning requires making mistakes, and experiencing evil, hatred, bad, loss, pain, and suffering. These are eternal, so we need to be saved. Everyone needs salvation from themselves. We know we need salvation. All that we do indicates that we know we need to be saved from our own ignorance, childishness - and stupidity. The gods are whatever we need to save us. False gods cannot save. We look for others to save us from loneliness. Some seek a sexual connection. Others create an ego of goodness. We may numb our conscience with drugs, or feel like money can fix anything. So many of us bury our head in the sand and refuse to believe, thinking ignorance can save us.
For me, I need others to bear testimony of my goodness. I need my wife to say, “He’s a good husband.” I need my children to say, “He’s a good father.” I need my patients to say, “He’s a good doctor.” I need members of the Church to say “He’s a good Mormon.” I need Christians to say, "He's a good Christian." I need friends to support my “goodness.” My pride, my ego, my god needs this support. I protect my pride - at all costs. I have to, or I would have nothing. I see myself as a basically good person, and I want to continue to see myself as good. I need to protect my image. The image is a false god. My “good” ego is a false god which cannot save me.
I have an enemy, a patient who is threatening a lawsuit, and to publish to the world that I created pain - hurting instead of healing, and I feel extremely stressed. I’m in self-preservation mode. I’m being accused of being a bad doctor. It feels like I could lose everything! I need to protect myself. I feel so anxious about the possibility of losing the support of others - my pride - that I shake, and feel palpitations, I lose sleep, I can’t eat. My mind is racing from “defend myself,” to “attack my attacker.” I have to protect myself.
However, it’s clear to me after fervent prayer that I really need the ego to be stripped away - to be stripped of pride. I need to stop looking to others to feed my ego. The ego is very fragile and requires the support of others. It’s a building without a foundation, standing in the air, and will fall. It will fall, sooner or later. I cannot protect it. I cannot continue to put all my energy into supporting it. It needs to fall.
I only have one other option: to turn to God. The only true God. The only One who saves. Charity doesn’t protect herself. Meekness and lowliness of heart allow the exposure, pain, and loss without attacking back, or even getting angry. Meekness doesn’t kill the snake that bit me. I need charity. I need meekness. I need love. I need kindness. I need compassion. I’ve been bitten. My ego is being threatened. I need to NOT protect myself. I will meekly go into the loss of my pride. I will look to God to save me, instead of the opinions of others. In this sense, it’s the best thing that could happen to me, truly a gift from God. The attack on my pride is needed, for without it I would never learn these things.
My friends are my enemies. My friends support my ego. My friends tell me what I want to hear. My friends give me what I want. Those I like, who like me, require nothing of me, offering nothing but more of the same. I do not have to sacrifice, nor suffer, so I cannot learn to love, nor have charity. I keep my ego. I keep my pride. They support my false gods. My friends enable my addictions, and help me float down the river of pride to the gulf of misery and endless wo -- pushing me down to hell!
My enemies are my friends. Only my enemies help me to grow, to learn, to smash all of my false gods. My enemies help me on the way to Eternal Life by showing me my weaknesses. They teach me the lessons of life. They give me pain, sorrow, and grief. They teach me the ways of forgiveness and love. They make me whole. They make me turn to the Lord. Only my enemies prepare me to receive the gift of charity, the pure love of Christ. Suffering at the hand of an enemy is the path to salvation because it helps me to let go of the false gods. Enemies are a gift from God, the true God, the One who saves.
I need more enemies, and fewer friends.
