When the Red Pill Finds You
Rediscovering The Matrix
I first watched the Matrix trilogy years ago when I was younger, and honestly, I enjoyed it but didn’t think too deeply about it. Then about a year or two ago, I felt this pull to watch it again, like I needed to understand what it was really trying to say. And let me tell you, I got the clarity I was looking for. Lately, I can’t stop thinking about that film, which is exactly why I’m sitting here writing this.
I’ve seen videos online claiming that the Matrix was secretly telling the story of Jesus, that Neo represents Christ and Morpheus is like John the Baptist announcing His arrival. I get why people say that, and there’s definitely some truth to it. But as I’ve been processing it, I’m realizing something different. To me, Neo isn’t Jesus. Neo is us. He’s me. He’s every believer in Christ.
Think about Neo’s life before everything changed, before he met Morpheus and Trinity. He was going through the motions, living his ordinary life, but deep down he knew there had to be more. He kept showing up to his job, doing what he was supposed to do, but there was this constant discontent eating away at him. He was waiting for something to change, even though he didn’t know what that something was.
That’s exactly how I feel so many of us are as believers. Ephesians 1:4 tells us we were predestined, chosen before the world even existed to be holy and set apart for God. So when we’re living below that calling, when we’re just going through the motions, we feel it. There’s this heaviness, this sense that something’s off. But at the same time, we’re also kind of used to the mundane. It’s comfortable in a weird way. We know how to do “normal” even when normal feels soul crushing.
Then one day, completely unexpectedly, something happens. Someone crosses your path, or you have an experience that wakes something up inside you. For Neo, it was meeting Trinity. For us as believers, it can be hearing a message that pierces straight through you, or meeting someone whose faith is so real it makes you question everything, or having an encounter with God that you can’t explain or shake off.
No matter what it is, the fact is, once that awakening happens, you can’t unsee it. You can try to go back to how things were. God knows I’ve tried. But it’s impossible. You’ve tasted something real, and suddenly everything else feels like fake, feels wrong. And the frustrating part? The moment you start waking up, it’s like you also wake up every force out there that wants to keep you asleep. There are real spiritual battles that intensify when you start stepping into who you’re meant to be. It’s like the enemy goes, “Oh no, she’s figuring it out. We need to distract her, discourage her, do whatever it takes to get her back to sleepwalking.”
Ephesians 6:12 - “For we do not wrestle against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places.”
The more I think about it, the more convinced I am that we, the people of God, are Neo. I am Neo. By God’s Grace and Mercy, I had a moment of awakening, and ever since then, I haven’t been able to live the way I used to. I’ve tried so many times to just be “normal,” to care about the things everyone else cares about, to chase the same things they chase. But it all feels empty. Actually, it’s worse than empty. It’s painful. Because once you’ve been awakened to the truth, the illusion stops working.
There’s this powerful scene in the Matrix where Neo actually dies, and then comes back to life. He had to be willing to sacrifice everything, and when he did, he came back completely transformed. He wasn’t the same guy anymore.
Jesus talks about this all the time with His disciples. He said we have to be willing to lose our lives in this world to truly find life.
Matthew 16:25 - “For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”
In John 12:24-25, Jesus gets even more specific:
“Very truly I tell you, unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life.”
I think about how often Scripture compares us to seeds and trees. Psalm 92:13 says, “Those who are planted in the house of the Lord shall flourish in the courts of our God.” But here’s the thing about planting: the seed has to die first. It has to break open, give up what it was, so it can become something so much bigger, a whole tree that bears fruit and provides life.
If I’m going to become everything God created me to be, there has to be a death. Not a physical death, but a death to the life I’ve been clinging to. Death to trying to fit in. Death to chasing things that don’t matter. Death to who I thought I was supposed to be based on what the world told me.
It’s scary, honestly. Because dying to those things means stepping into the unknown. But on the other side of that death is real life, life in the Spirit that isn’t limited by fear, by what people think, by the exhausting cycle of trying to find meaning in things that were never meant to satisfy me.
We are all on a journey. And our Lord God and King, Jesus is actively working to wake us from our sleep.
Ephesians 5:14 - “Therefore He says: Awake, you who sleep, Arise from the dead, And Christ will give you light.”
And just like Neo, once you’ve taken that red pill, and awakened to the truth, there’s no going back. There’s only moving forward into the fullness of who you were always meant to be.
With Love,
Ejiro
