[Note: For the first part of this reflection, look here: https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/12/05/its-no-surprise-to-me-i-am-my-own-worst-enemy-part-one/%5D

In the late 1990’s, a rock band named Lit came out with a song called “My Own Worst Enemy.” Although the hijinks of the narrator, like getting drunk, saying foolish things to his girlfriend, who leaves him sleeping with his clothes on and waking up to the sound of a smoke alarm going off because of a cigarette that is still burning, are not familiar to me, being my own worst enemy is something I am easily acquainted with. To be sure, I am not alone in this, but I figure it is easiest to speak about the life and heart I know best in examining this issue–my own. In looking at how I am my own worst enemy, I would like to talk a little bit about defenses, in line with the previous entry, but I would also like to at least briefly discuss other related ways that we are our own worst enemies.

We may see fevers and mucus as a form of defense, but they are also forms of coping mechanisms with the problems of life. Our own coping mechanisms are often spectacularly unsuccessful. I know for myself that I tend to have a pretty compulsive personality, so I have to be very careful (and sadly am not often nearly careful enough) as far as what sort of behaviors I let myself indulge in with the knowledge that what is enjoyed will have a difficult time being enjoyed in its proper proportion and balance because it is so easy to go too far. This may be true in what we term addictive behaviors, and more generally it may be found in those compulsions that we engage in because we are seeking to find some sort of release from the stress of life by focusing our efforts in a few places, which may create more serious problems than those we were running from in the first place. Often our coping mechanisms may be an immense curse, causing extreme damage to ourselves and those around us.

Beyond the difficulties of coping mechanisms, our specific defenses are also problematic. I tend to be a person of fairly robust emotional defenses, and I recognize kindred spirits all over. Our defenses often make us our own worst enemy because they lead us to attack people as threats who are much like ourselves–wounded people who are not in fact very aggressive to others but prickly because of their own hurts and insecurities. I know that I myself have had serious problems with people both because they viewed me as a threat to them or their loved ones, or because I viewed them as a personal threat (or, in some unfortunate cases, both) where there was no threatening intent on either side, merely a rather intense and entirely understandable desire to protect ourselves in areas of vulnerability and concern. When this happens once or twice, we may brush it off as painful but only rare experience. When it happens over and over again, though, it tends to spur us to examine ourselves and what we are doing wrong both to mistakenly appear threatening as well as to be mistakenly threatened over and over again. Perhaps we are too insecure and prickly, perhaps we are too insensitive to the concerns of others and too reckless in crossing social taboos (to say nothing of moral ones), or perhaps all of the above.

Even the nature of our personal defenses, and not merely who they are directed against, can be problematic. We are silent when speaking would allow us to explain ourselves. We are hostile and easily provoked with those who deserve our tenderness and understanding and forbearance. We keep our distance and push others away to protect ourselves when we would desire to be close but just cannot feel safe. We use our knowledge of others not to be sensitive to their own hurts and vulnerabilities but to choose the most hurtful words and actions when we are upset, sabotaging the trust and intimacy we want to build. We stand and fight when we should run from those who do not have our best interests at heart and never will, and we run from those who truly care, no matter how awkward they may be. And for all of this we, and others, pay a heavy price. We wear our scars like badges, and in vain we seek to love others for who they are and be loved for who we are like we truly want to be loved. We may know what we want, or at least think we do, but the task of coping with our lives leads us to act in ways perverse and contrary to our own interests and well-being.

For we all live in a dangerous world. There is no one, no matter how smart or beautiful or intelligent or fortunate, who can find a safe place from the suffering and troubles and futility of our world. For many of us, there is no safe place even inside our own hearts and minds from the evil that oppresses this entire world, and only moments of relative peace and tranquility by the grace of God. In such a dangerous world is tempting to wish to defend ourselves, to seek to be strong enough to overcome peril on our own. Yet David, certainly a man whose capacity for self-defense far exceeded our own because of his own skill and the comparative lack of technology of his time, had it right in Psalm 20:1-2: “May the Lord answer you in the day of trouble; may the name of the God of Jacob defend you; may He send you help from the sanctuary, and strengthen you out of Zion.” For we cannot ultimately protect ourselves, and our attempts to do so without God’s aid and wisdom will only hurt other damaged people like ourselves who seek their own happiness and redemption. We truly are our own worst enemies, wounding those who will in turn lash out against ourselves and others, only to make this world and its inhabitants even more broken than we already are.