“For the natural man is an enemy to God, and has been from the fall of Adam, and will be, forever and ever, unless he yields to the enticings of the Holy Spirit, and putteth off the natural man and becometh a saint through the atonement of Christ the Lord, and becometh as a child, submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love, willing to submit to all things which the Lord seeth fit to inflict upon him, even as a child doth submit to his father.” (Mosiah 3:19). Many of us may concern ourselves greatly with the prospect that we might have some elements of the natural man lurking within us. We don't want to be enemies of God so we might embark on a series of self-flagellating and/or self-aggrandizing attempts to either purge ourselves of the natural man through our guilt and shame and obsession with cleanliness and purity, or else to cancel out the darkness through an increased fervor for righteousness and good works. Our mistake lies in the belief that the natural man is something like a cancer that we can cut out of ourselves. We are the natural men and natural women that God created. The fact that we have a natural and innate capacity to be the enemies of God is not a flaw or a malfunction in our design. We are descendents of the house of Israel. We are those who wrestle with God. This is as it should be. Our feelings of hostility and animosity towards God are not to be ignored. We can't run away from the fight. The path to becoming a saint is not peaceful. We have to step into the ring. We have to grapple with what it means to be given the capacity to both feel the pain of others and to be the cause of such pain, to desire a better world but to lack the powers to fully realize our paradisical visions on our own timescale, to have the freedom to make our own choices but the responsibility to accept the consequences. This is not an easy fight and God doesn't always fight fair. When Jacob wrestled with God and was starting to get the upper hand, God dislocated his hip. We will get beaten bloody if we fight against God but it is our natural inclination to take up the fight. If we do not oppose God then we are going against our nature. The language that is used in King Benjamin's speech - yield, submit, put off or set down or lay aside - these are the actions of one who is in a wrestling match. If we don't end up in a submission hold then how are we supposed to submit? If we don't follow our natural inclination to be an enemy and to fight against God, then how can we possibly yield? Jonah tried running away from the fight. He was so opposed to being God's enemy that he was almost prepared to let a whole ship’s worth of people die rather than take up the necessary and essential fight against God. And I'm sure while he was finally wrestling with God he was wishing that he hadn't run quite so far or for so long so that he might not have had to work out his flight in the belly of a whale. Job had climbed as high as he could in this life without fighting against God but even he had to obey his nature and step into the ring. He went the whole twelve rounds and got beaten to a bloody pulp but he was blessed more on the latter end of his life than he had been on the former in part because he had the courage when he had been knocked down again and again to get back up and keep fighting with God. God is perfectly content being our enemy. He would much rather we fight against Him than with each other or with ourselves. He knows that we need this struggle, that we will work out and build up muscles by grappling with Him that we could develop in no other way. And He knows that once we have tired ourselves out and gotten to know our enemy much more up close and personally than we ever could have imagined, then we will choose to yield. We will choose to submit, not out of fear or duty but out of love and understanding. Rather than ignoring or denying our aggression, we integrate it as an integral part of our character. Jesus told us that we must love our enemies and God is an enemy that we must love with all of our heart, mind, and soul. We can not be brought At One with God unless we first allow ourselves to be At Odds with Him. I know that as natural men and natural women we are enemies of God and we will continue to be until we first begin the fight and then eventually yield and submit and put off the natural man and become a saint through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. I hope we can all fight the good fight and finish the match and keep the faith so that we can put on the crown of righteousness that God has laid up for us.
