Frustrated Fly Syndrome

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I woke up a bit early this morning and was free to spend some time thinking and observing before I left for work. While my dog romped around the back yard, I watched a fly desperate to escape through the closed kitchen window. I am often intrigued by this because, if he just knew it, the sliding door was open about five feet to the south, and he could have just flown out if only he would listen.

We are a lot like the fly. We come up against a barrier, usually due to our own making since the fly was almost certainly born outside my house, and when a large hand tries to direct our life towards an open door, we put on our boxing gloves and resist it. We know better, and in our hubris, we fly again and again and again against the glass, buzzing in frustration as we frantically try to get free.

Frustrated fly syndrome happens to almost everyone, and it has a common source and a common cure. We see where we are versus where we can be, where we desire to be, but there is often something unseen but powerful that stands between us and our goal. Rather than go around it, especially when the invisible hand of Providence tries to guide us, we press forward, unwilling to admit that sometimes in order to move forward we must first go backward. As a consequence, we, like the frustrated fly, waste and wear out our lives in exercises of futility and don't get to enjoy what life offers. Then we feel even more like we're missing out because we can see our objective, but no matter our efforts we seem unable to make any progress.

We feel we have so much we must do/should do/ have to do. No sooner do we overcome one thing than we're confronted with another, just as daunting, and just as exhausting against our efforts and knowledge. Where we are is not the world where we wish to be. We live for something else, and as a consequence we are too infrequently happy now and with what we have when it is frequently a blessing.

The problem is that we try to do to much by ourselves. Whether the hand is a literal hand of help from a good friend or divine intervention, we think we know better. Real men don't need instructions. What we forget is that, no matter how appealing that other and better world, no unclean thing can dwell in the presence of God, and we are to him as the fly. No matter what we do, we are and will remain unclean. Flies cannot of themselves change their nature. Only Christ can do that for us.

Too many people among us are frustrated because they try to save themselves without involving the Savior. We do not invite Him into our lives. We only turn to Him when all other lights go out and we are desperate, and because we have been slow all along to hear Him, even when it's nice commentary on us or simple conversation and education, He is slow to hear us in our self-imposed bondage. The only way to truly change is to submit to Christ. As long as we try to affect change without applying the atonement, the more things will remain the same.

In his general epistle, James tells us the formula that works to cure this syndrome (James 4:7-8).

Submit yourselves therefore to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you.

We resist the Lord and give in to temptation. So, the devil rarely flees, and the Savior cannot come near us because we cannot dwell in His presence. Remember that the devil desires that everyone be as miserable as possible. He wants us to waste and wear out our lives, not in anything productive, but in lives of quiet desperation accomplishing and enjoying nothing. Once we accept the help of that Invisible Hand and move five feet to the south, even though that be many lengths distant from our present position on the scale of the fly, we will be able to move forward and enjoy all that this world and the better one that follows it have to offer. That is part of the good news of the gospel- that through Christ we can actually enjoy things and that because of His Atonement there are better things to come.