When the axe fell....

Once upon a time a fat, sappy teenager stumbled across an addiction known as anime. Engrossed and obsessed, he worshiped this sinful collection of Japanese animation while playing the Church game. Over time, the fat sappy teenager (who eventually became slimmer and happier), became less obsessed, yet still held on to his little drug. He became more involved in Church and didn't play the game anymore, yet he still held on to the thing that held him from a true relationship with his Creator.

Case in point: The 16th of Wednesday in April of 2008. The Beginning of the End.

A wonderful devotional named "A Call to Die"entered my life during a stroll through the city. Coming from Bestbuy, I remember, holding the DVD set of this obsession in my hand, turned it down, went to Lifeway, and bought this book, and started a 40 day fast from anime and manga. That day was March 29th. On Day 18 of this intense devotional, a wonderful speaker named Brandi spoke on wednesday night, one of the best wednesday nights of the year. It was that night I chose to end my relationship with anime. I remember holding a piece of clay she had passed out while speaking, saying "Are you going to let God mold you into the person He wants you to be?". At that point, angel and demon Armageddon broke out in my mind. I knew why. He was asking my to give up the thing that had been in my life since childhood, which mutated into a unhealthy idolatry. I sat, as my buddy Linc led closing music, letting the battle rage. Finnally...i took my thumb and pressed it into the clay. It was finished. That was my decision. That night we didnt leave until 9pm ish, a large group who had been moved talking about what had happened. I then immeadiatly trashed the manga and stuck the DVDs in the garage.

Now re-read the last sentance of the last paragraph. "I stuck the DVDs in the garage." Hm. Why did that happen? Over time I died to it...yet something haunted me still. Maybe I still saw it...in the garage, getting out of the van...in a little green travel bag...the wretched DVDs, the majority of the sin materialized even still! While I went a whole summer of no anime, still in my mind, I couldnt quite get it out of there. Duh! The temptation was still there! What could be done to solve this, to finnaly break free from this obsession...?

This!

Yes, sometimes the way to truly put something to death is to literally kill it with an axe! The punishment for my delay to fully kill my old obsession was my hesitancy at first - I debated in my mind if this was the right thing to do. When you are going to do something radical for God, dont wait. Do it now, before Satan gets a chance to give you doubts about your actions. Even though I havnt watched any of those DVDs since the day I started the fast, the temptation was the fact they were a few doors away. Now that they are in ribbons, there is no more temptation, since they are dead! After a while, it got easier and easier to lift the axe and slice them up. It was fun too! Poor tree stump.