pride the plug

Image here.

Pride is a plug.

I can't remember if I wrote on this blog about this before, but I had an experience a few months ago that taught me a lot about the perils of pride. I had a conversation that was pretty fine as far as conversations go, but I left the scenario feeling... off. I couldn't put my finger on it but I just felt like something was kind of wrong. It took me a day or two to realize that the off feeling had happened directly after this conversation, also; I hadn't made the connection at the time.

So I asked God if I had done something wrong in the conversation. Had I been offensive? Had I somehow said the wrong thing during this innocuous conversation?

I got the answer of no, but when I asked more directly if there was something I needed to repent of, I got the answer of yes.

I had to repent of my pride.

I was enlightened to see how, during that conversation, even though both of us were very civil, I had allowed myself to feel enmity towards the person I was conversing with. I had felt better than this person, had assumed that they thought I was stupid, and then resented them for it. Basically, I had been prideful.

Now, all of this happened without me even truly realizing it. Consciously, I shook those feelings off when I felt them, and told myself that I didn't really feel that way. I told myself I liked this person just fine and they liked me too, nothing to worry about. But when I prayed about it later and saw the situation more clearly, I realized that I had been privately harboring pride--without my conscious self even fully recognizing it. As soon as God explained this to me, I saw that it was true. I just hadn't seen it.

I told God, I don't know how to fix this. How do I repent of something I didn't even know that I did? I asked Him to just remove from me the part that was to blame.

And when I did that, it was the craziest thing: I felt like He reached into my left side, and pulled out a plug. Like a bathtub plug. And when the plug was removed, it felt like all this junk was just oozing out of my body.

And then I was fine. And I felt so much better.

Pride the Plug

Image here.

When I asked to understand what this meant, I had kind of a moment of clairsentience, where I saw the spirit as pumice. You know, pumice: the volcanic rock full of holes. Sometimes people use it to smooth out calluses on their feet and stuff.

Well, pumice is cool because it floats. It has all these tiny holes in it that water can move through, and when pumice is submerged in water, the water does fill those holes, and the water ends up buoying up the rock.

The rock can float--when the holes are all free and clear.

What I saw was the spirit as a piece of pumice, and every instance of pride, resentment, bitterness--opposition to the faith, hope, and charity we are supposed to embody instead--acted as a plug. One by one, the holes in the pumice I saw were plugged, until the rock sank.

But, in contrast, when those plugs of pride and anger and enmity were removed, the pumice began to float again.

In the moment, I understood that this mattered because the floating was a metaphor for moving with ease and grace through life. Pulling out our pride and other sins energetically enables the Holy Spirit to move through us, to guide us, to inspire us, to buoy us up in a way that we are simply not capable of when we are all plugged up.

The work of unplugging happens naturally during true repentance and forgiveness. Frequent repentance and forgiveness keep our spiritual pores open so that the Holy Ghost is free to move within us and keep us metaphorically floating through life.

Conclusion

Keeping ourselves free of sin is crucial to energetic, physical, and emotional health. My emotions were a wreck before I had this experience and realized what I had to repent of. As soon as I repented, my energy was fixed and my emotions were back to normal too. If you're feeling off, I invite you to consider praying for help realizing what you need to forgive or repent of. Ask to be led to the plugs that are the source of your spiritual or even physical discomfort. Consider praying for those energetic plugs to be removed. You may be surprised at what happens!