Life Above Reproach

By:  Robert Anton

Romans 7:14-25 “For we know that the law is spiritual, but I am the flesh sold under sin.  For I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate.  Now if I do what I do not want, I agree with the law, that it is good.  So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin – that dwells within me.  For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh.  For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out.  For I do not the good I want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep doing.  Now if I do what I do not want, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me.  So, I find it to be a law that when I want to do right, evil lies close at hand.  For I delight in the law of God in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members.  Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body or certain death?  Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!  So then, I myself serve the law of God with my mind, but with my flesh I serve the law of sin.”

Big deal, youthful generation!  I got you to read a little of the Bible.  Maybe I cannot change you.  Maybe I cannot even catch your attention-span long enough to read what I write.  So maybe you should hear I got 85 years-to-life for stealing a 27-inch Sony television and some jewelry.  Yes, I’m a California non-violent third striker.  Recidivism is the name of that game, i.e., arrest record.  This incarceration to-date is 24 years, 9 months!  Any questions?

Let us start with “cognitive childhood development” – parent’s divorce, raped at 13-1/2, drug use by 14, angry person grows into an adult.  Problem was I did not care about you, your family, a governor, president, or judge.  Funny, being a surfer, I thought I knew God!  The rampage and destruction I carried to the community had to stop.  Strung-out on cocaine, the law finally caught up to me.  This authority-power hatred still did not matter.  I now was a caged animal, lashing out.  It took almost 1-1/2 decades of continuous individual and group therapies to come to grips with the fact that I was the problem.  Now let us fix me!

Luckily, I ran into a psychologist and professor who forced me to re-write my past and deal with here and now, making plans for a future, surely was a fate of all fates.  What?  Forgive others, forgive myself, unheard of!

So be careful with all those synthetic drugs with chemicals which are banned in the United States, stuff that will take you out – as in death.  Stay angry and get shot-up as everyone packs a pistol, or change!  Live life, pray, positive programming, the right-way, right-thought etcetera.

Always remember that until the Board of Parole Hearings (BPH) decides I am not a threat to society, I will be sitting here probably trying to get my bachelor’s degree at 65 years old, yikes!

So, are you in or staying out?  These are actual words of encouragement, state food bites!  Please refer to Romans 7:14-25 and keep the faith.

P.S. Let us pray!