I took the Blue Pill

Writing has always been something that I have done to process.  The interesting thing to me is the fact that writing is actually a positive way to deal with things and if I look at the blog for the past year, well the writing is so very sporadic, contrast that with how much I used to write and I can begin to see yet another proof that I was listening to the enemy and falling to my mental health issues.  

Working through things in healthy ways really is preferable to taking the Blue Pill.  I should explain.  Back in the day there was this movie The Matrix.  I know right go figure.  In the movie Neo (Even though every time I see Neo on the screen I actually see Ted Theodore Logan, but I digress.) ANYWAY, in the movie, Neo is given a choice of taking one of two pills.  The red pill is all about the truth, what’s really happening in the real world. The red pill is about feeling things as they really are, about seeing things that are actually there, about facing the hard parts of life while finding good things and people to share it all with and to partner with and to get the job done when it comes to living, even in a decidedly dystopian world run by machines.  

Take the blue pill though and none of that matters.  Taking the blue pill lets Neo ignore truth, it lets him inoculate himself from reality, it allows him to continue in a virtual world where nothing real and tangible can touch him.  In other words the blue pill is the ultimate form of escapism and wall building. It isolates and protects and cocoons the person that takes it in a self imposed bubble of willful ignorance. 

Willful ignorance.  Think about that for a moment.  Those two words speak volumes.  Willful ignorance differs from actual ignorance in one glaringly obvious way.  The willful part.  People that choose willful ignorance, and yes dear reader that was me, know that things are not really the way they seem or are willing to accept.  They know the truth, things are not okay, but it’s so much easier in the short term to just remain locked in the Matrix they created. 

So I took the blue pill because the blue pill was so much more preferable to the world that I was inhabiting. I programmed my own Matrix, and with each new “line of code” I wrote, another wall went up, more isolation occurred. The crazy thing is I really did escape to a virtual world. A world I created with the help of people from all over the place, geography has no real meaning once you “jack in” to your matrix.  These people were just like me, probably in more ways than I or they want to admit, it’s easy to log into a chat room or a KiK chat, or to text some VOIP number that isn’t real. and become something that you’re not.  The reason those places exist is for people like me, depressed, angry, sad, alone. The reason they go there is the reason I went there.  It’s preferable to be some character that can do anything, can be strong, or wise, or the bad guy, or fun, or powerful, or magical, or in control. I created a reality that had nothing to do with real life and then actively chose my Matrix and each time I did, Agent Aaron would lock the real Aaron in a cage smirk at him for all his protesting and walk out of the dungeon he inhabited, all the while the red pill people in my life were getting further and further away.  Each time one of them would stand in front of me with their palm open holding those two pills the red and the blue, I looked at them and shook my head and cried knowing what I should do and still I reached for that stupid blue pill because that was easier at the moment, and preferable to actually feeling and dealing with the pain and hurt and isolation and depression and wanting to be dead.  

Red pill people are in our lives because God loves us.  He loves us more than we can ever really understand and he wants us to be what we were designed to be as opposed to the rabbit hole we ignore because our Matrix is easier to deal with, and that is the real problem.  The longer we choose to stay in our matrix, the longer we sit and write line of code after line of code, all the while knowing we want more and real and true, the harder it is to allow ourselves the freedom of the Red Pill.  We become what we all dread.  Our own Agent Smith the one that keeps the order in our world and locks us away from the truth.  That’s what Agent Aaron did.  He looked at the people around him and decided that they were better than he was, that they were stronger than he was, that they couldn’t handle the work that it would be to pull him from the Matrix, and help him learn and live and move in a world that was real and tangible and that offered true healing not from the sadness and depression and pain of life, but healing through the sadness and depression and pain. 

In Second Samuel, Davids Morpheus. (Nathan the Prophet) stands in front of him holding out the Red Pill, and at first David reaches for the blue one. 

2Sam. 12:5     David was furious. “As surely as the LORD lives,” he vowed, “any man who would do such a thing deserves to die! 

Nathan has just finished offering David the Red pill.  Giving him a clear picture of the sin that David has perpetrated on Uriah a man that was fighting for the country.  A man that was where he was supposed to be, while David stayed behind in the city,  all comfortable and cozy, all up in the Matrix of his own design.  In Nathans story about a rich man and a poor man and a pet sheep God is doing something really amazing for David.  God is reaching to him, letting David know that there were choices made that added to the lines of code that were actually walling David off from those around him. Davids response is one that has picked up the blue pill, and is searching desperately for some water to wash it down.  I mean think about it.  When faced with the real world with the truth of what He had become, it was preferable to protest and get all frustrated and angry in a desperate effort to remain in the Matrix, even as his very soul, that part that we read about when Samuel told Saul that he was no longer going to be king.

¹⁴ But now your kingdom must end, for the LORD has sought out a man after his own heart. The LORD has already appointed him to be the leader of his people, because you have not kept the LORD’s command.”

God didn’t let David stay in the Matrix of his own Making.  God had sent Samuel to anoint David as the new king.  God through Samuel called David a man after his own heart, and so he sent Nathan.  

Why did I keep taking the blue pill, even when I didn’t want too, even when I knew better, even when I had people all around me more than willing to help me with the truth that the red pill offered?

Two things, choice and pain.  My un-redeemed flesh was in a lot of pain, sometimes physically, but more often than not, mentally and emotionally.  Being overwhelmed and hurt and sad and frustrated and depressed and suffering from nightmares and all of the things that go along with mental illness contributed sure, but in the end given the choice between the work of moving forward and of the comfort of my matrix I popped that blue pill in my mouth and shut the door and added the lines of guilt and shame and resentment and fear and doubt and anger and confusion to my matrix.  

And then God said enough, and I thank Him for it daily.

Did you need a picture of my Morpheus?