Sometimes we know things about ourselves that we choose to ignore. For me it is usually something I just don’t want to let go of. A guilty pleasure, like chocolate, which is actually totally fine as long as that is not all you eat. What if it was smoking? Even if it was just occasionally? Is it still terrible for you to do? Does it still do damage, even if the damage is not as impactful as it would be if you smoked a pack a day? What if it is fantasy? Not dreams, dreams inspire and motivate. Fantasy is different. It creates a desire within that can never truly be satisfied.
A very good friend of mine and accountability partner recently gave me a wonderful definition for sin which I had never heard before, and then shortly after I found almost the same thing written on the wall of the basement of a home I was showing. Perhaps there just to drive home a point I am choosing to ignore. ‘Sin is trying to fulfill a legitimate need in and ill-legitimate fashion.’
Not surprising the bible addresses this very issue.
Temptation and fantasy, they are so very much intertwined. Over the course of my life I have had a vivid imagination. It is the source of my writing, my creative thoughts and ideas. The fun games and adventures we had as children, the stories I have made up over the years for my kids and written, though few finished. (Hey isn’t that something I talk about in a different blog?) A seeking of adventure and willingness to try new things. Imagination and dreaming and maybe a small part of fantasy, this is the birth place of creativity. This is the legitimate. It is great and wonderful and exciting. It gives life to ideas and plans. Goals and new innovation. It is part of what makes life exciting and fun.
I love imagination. I don’t think we use enough of it anymore. What I personally struggle with is not so much in not using imagination, but sometimes what I use it for. I have created fantasies in my mind of how life should be, or ideas thoughts and schemes that are places where I could very easily slip into desire, and then be enticed. For me I am not sure I always know what comes first the enticement or the desire. Would it entice me at all if I did not have a desire? Or are there times when I had no idea about a desire until I saw the enticement.
I went to lunch with a friend recently. I was totally content and full after my wonderful meal and did not consider at all dessert until the waitress brought around the dessert tray. I most definitely felt enticed and desire for the chocolate passion cake she showed us. In fact my mouth waters thinking about it now. Something I had not even thought of until it was placed before me. I am proud of myself, I did not get a piece. I overcame the desire and the enticement but WOW was I tempted!!! Still I have a weakness for chocolate cake. That I did know, even before the tray was brought around. What I did not know was that the weakness would come before me in that moment in such an enticing way.
You see that is part of what I have a hard time letting go of. The few things in my life I choose to ignore. I choose to write them off as controllable, not that big of a deal, or things I would never actually do. But I think about them, flirt with them in my mind, and sometimes put myself in situations where I am close to them but not really with them. Like an alcoholic going to a bar. They tell themselves they will not drink and it will not actually hurt to be there, especially with others around, thinking about the drink and not taking it. That is a victory after all right? Being that close but not giving in, wow are they strong!
Here is the thing I am beginning to realize, the more you flirt with the enticement, the desire, the closer you come to the fire, the better the chance you get burned. And guess what? The fantasy that you never act on? Well you do in so many ways, in your heart, in your head, and that head and that heart, they begin to change and open up opportunities for the action you never thought you would do. The cigarette you never thought you would have again, the drink you never thought you would have, the purse you never thought you would steal, the lie you never thought you would tell, the affair you never thought you would have. It all starts with flirting and the fantasy.
So that desire conceives, seizes opportunity and sin is born. I have not sinned yet to death. But I have sinned in such a way as to put to death blessings, relationships and opportunities for my life and for God to work. That is God to work using me. It dawned on me very recently how very subtle this is the change that happens. It sneaks up on you. The slow fade, like the ‘Casting Crowns’ song. This is one of Satan’s most successful ploys on Christians. The flirt with sin. We are not actually doing anything wrong, and we have not acted, we are not ‘intending’ to do anything wrong at all. We are not pure though either. Of course how can we be, we are only human after all.
I find myself reasoning with temptation. That is like reasoning with a 2 year old. Reasoning with your dog when they shred the pillow in the kennel.
It doesn’t work. It doesn’t change anything. Temptation needs a straight up response. Temptation needs NO, temptation needs the walk away discussion over, and temptation needs the sword. It needs to be put to death, not to bring death.
I have a weakness for a few things in my life, like chocolate cake. I know about them, I need to decide to no longer put myself in a position where they can take root, or show up or be a regular part of my mind life, let alone my heart life. Now they may on occasion show up like the dessert tray when I am not expecting them or have any possible need for them. I said no to the cake because I have a discipline in my life I am faithful to, and because I was already satisfied. If I had faced the cake before the lunch the ability to resist would have been harder. I did not have disciplines in place that I am committed to the enticement would have been greater. If both were missing chances are I would have given in.
Restless dis-satisfaction let temptation in. Lack of discipline allows temptation to take root. Temptation creates desire, desire conceives a fantasy, the fantasy seizes opportunity, and opportunity gives birth to sin. Sin kills life and its blessings, which keeps you restless and dis-satisfied. The hole just gets deeper every day.
I don’t think I have it in me to let go of my desires. I have for too long ignored a few of my weakness, or decided that they were not really that big of a deal. I could keep them in check. I don’t think that any more. By the grace of God I have not had those weakness move past the fantasy side of me. But those fantasies must be put to death conquered by the cross, buried in the word and covered in prayer. The fantasy must be starved to death, so that it cannot rise up and cause the death of the blessings of God, or even worse, the death of the ability for the Lord to use me to be a blessing.
This probably doesn’t sound like a gratitude blog, but in reality it is. I am grateful beyond measure that God has been with me and is willing to teach me and show me how very much I desperately need him and how very much he protects me from even myself. I cannot think of a greater thing to be grateful for than this!
