He thinks about it when he is not near it. He can feel the soft texture in his mouth. He can think of nothing else. And he knows its wrong. He knows it will make a mess and lead to trouble. He knows they will not be pleased. But he cannot (or will not) resist. He must have it. He has it. Yes! The thing he has been wanting is finally a reality. And he savors it until it finally dissolves into a sweet memory. *HACK!* He's coughing. He's gagging. His eyes bug out of his head. He realizes it didn't kill him and he goes back for more.
Bandit, my Jack Russell Terrier mix, loves to eat toilet paper. He's obsessed with it. In fact, he's eating it right now. John and I cannot leave the house for an instant without him immediately going to the trash can and plucking some out. It's absolutely disgusting. Sometimes we don't even realize he has scored himself a piece until we hear the short, loud "HACK" that comes from the other room. And he knows it's wrong. In every sense, Bandit knows he should not eat toilet paper. And yet, day after day his toilet paper glitter is scattered across the carpet. And every day he looks at me from underneath the bed with his tail between his legs and his big eyes pleading for me to go easy on him.
And this is how we are with sin. It possesses our thoughts. It calls to us. But it does not nourish. It does not please our Master. Eventually we always end up choking on it. And yet, we return again and again, giving God our best look of innocence as we try to manipulate him into going easy on us. And this comparison between disgusting dog activity and human sin is not new. Proverbs 26:11 beat me to it. "As a dog returns to his vomit, so a man returns to his folly." And all sin is folly, is it not? It always keeps up longer than we want to stay and takes us farther than we want to go.
But the deeper question is why we continue to return to the very thing that chokes us? And I think the reason it three-fold.
1. We are paralyzed by fear.
Fear dictates that I do the same things over and over again. I grapple with the same sin for decades because I am too afraid to stare it in the face. The guilt makes me run away from it. Or worse, I am more comfortable with it than I am with God. I want the thing I'm sure of (that I convince myself won't destroy me) as opposed to the God I can't control.
2. We are prideful.
Sometimes we don't even acknowledge that what we are chewing on day after day is actually toilet paper. But others are not deceived. And it's even worse when everyone around you can see soggy sin hanging out of your mouth, and you are prideful enough to gloat about your service to the Lord or some other pretense. But sin deceives. Sin lies. Sin veils. Sin denies. And only the word of truth can penetrate the darkness.
3. We are not convinced that the thing we are giving up is worth the exchange.
Sometimes I am so frustrated that people seem to choose selfishness over and again, year after year, until I realize that in many ways, I do the same. As a response to my woes, my husband told me that people only give up something if they are convinced what they will get in return is better. We must be convinced that we are trading up when we give up each and every sin that has its talons in our life. That the reward is greater. And not just in heaven, but also here on earth. But most people simply aren't convinced that God is better than the thing they need to give up. And so we keep it. Year after year. Decade after decade. We joke it off. We trivialize it. And as all that time is going by, people are needing you. I need you. But we remain in our broken bodies because we are too afraid or too selfish or too blind to see the life that can be wrought from the abandonment of our sin. We missed the gospel completely. Jesus is Lord. He conquered sin. If you are living in the same sin year after year by choice, Jesus is not your Lord.
So if you are sick of gagging on your toilet paper, come away and be convinced that you are trading up in every way. Today. Tomorrow. And for eternity.
And if you can't figure out why you seem to be gagging on life every day, perhaps it's time to ask God what things we are too blind or too afraid to give over to Him. Repent and be healed.
And if you find that you are cowering under the bed while God tells you, "No, no!", remember that God disciplines those he loves, and he's only trying to keep you from choking to death. *HACK*
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