I had an appointment this afternoon during my lunch
break. I got done a little early and was driving back to work to eat the
healthy lunch I brought with me when I drove by an Arby’s and saw a picture of
a big, juicy roast beef sandwich with delicious fake cheese oozing out of it. My
mouth watered. I wanted one. Immediately, I started justifying all the reasons why
it was okay for me to have it…it’s not
like I eat them every day; I can always eat a healthy dinner and I’ll eat
healthy tomorrow; a little bad every now and then is not too bad…
Before I could even finish all the reasons, I was in the
drive-thru line. Now I was stuck in line, so I had committed to this and it
would be rude to not follow through!
I bought my sandwich…my big, juicy, scrumptious sandwich. And curly fries…because, how can you go to
Arby’s and NOT get curly fries? I consumed the fries driving back to work and rushed into
my office and quickly downed the sandwich because I didn’t want it to get cold!
Really, though, I did it quickly before I could allow
myself to feel too bad about it.
I shouldn’t have worried about that, though, because our
bad choices always have other consequences that are not so easy to ignore! An hour later, my bloated and uncomfortable
stomach was a constant reminder of what I had done. My too-tight pants might as
well have been screaming at me in irritation.
I had eater’s remorse.
It happens to me a lot.
And as I was thinking about that, all of a sudden I was
reminded of my Pastor’s sermon Sunday. We’re going through the book the 1st
Peter and this week landed us on chapter 4 verse 1-11. My Pastor, Adam, basically said that the
first 4 verses are talking about God is constantly working to develop our
character to be more reflective of Jesus.
He said God is working on us to have our desires to be turned toward
him. Something that stood out big to me
was how Adam explained the difference between an impulse and a desire. He said,
for example, we were created with a natural impulse to eat in order to stay
alive, but we have a DESIRE to eat foods that taste good. The impulse would be
to eat, the desire would be to eat cake…or a large meat sandwich that’s
dripping with calories.
Anyway, Adam said that verse 3 (For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to
do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and
lawless idolatry) is talking about how when desires run unchecked, and
appetites run free, is when our lives get out of control and less reflective of
Jesus.
You see, God wants us to CHOOSE to live under his
desires, so he gives us the choice. We
have to choose whether or not we’re going to indulge our appetites, give in to
our self-pleasing temptations, or limit them. It’s easy to give in. The enemy WANTS us to give in, so he makes it
easy. When we are weak because we haven’t eaten lunch yet and we drive by
something alluring, the enemy whispers “This is what you want.” And we start to consider it, we start to
justify it.
Next, you’re sitting in your office with a bloated belly
and feelings of self-hatred and disgust and asking “WHY DID I GIVE IN????”
The answer to that was glaringly clear to me today. I give in to sin, and self-indulgence, and my
own desires, because of 3 things:
I know that sounds silly, but it’s
true. I’m going to fail more when I’ve set myself up to fail. Whatever I desire
the most is what I’m going to lean most towards. Honestly, one is easy, because
we can basically just fall naturally into it with our flesh, and the other one,
the Godly desires, is hard, it’s takes constant work and effort, because we
have to OVERCOME the other one, the fleshly one, in order to feed the spiritual
one. Romans chapter 6 perhaps explains this the best: “Don’t let sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey
its passions. Do not present your body
to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as
those who have been brought from death to life, and your bodies to God as
instruments for righteousness. For
sin will have no dominion over you, since you are not under law but under
grace. What then? Are we to sin
because we are not under law but under grace? By no means! Do you not know that if you present
yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you
obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to
righteousness?
Ya’ll, that last part is big
right there…it is saying we enslave ourselves, we choose who to obey! We
have to want what God wants for us MORE than what we want.
2)
I put
myself in situations where I’ve failed before, and expect a different outcome.
Today, I knowingly took out cash,
just in case I needed it, even though it was out of the budget! I thought about
stopping for lunch BEFORE I drove by Arby’s. I put myself in the position of
weakness. I did this, because of the
first reason…I already wanted it more than I wanted to be good. Again, the Apostle Paul understand this and explained
it so well in Romans 7: “For I know that
nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do
what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. For I do not do the good I
want, but the evil I do not want is what I keep on doing.
He is saying that he gives in
to evil that he knows better than to do and doesn’t really want to do it but he
does want to do it and then he does it and feels bad about it…sounds a lot like
choices I’ve made in life that are worse than eating a roast beef but also
caused aches and pains!
3)
I lie to
myself about what makes me happy.
This is a big one. Maybe it
should be number one. But it’s a hard one. I thought that big giant sandwich
was what I wanted and that it would fulfill my desire, my driving impulse to
eat. But it was a lie. It didn’t make me happy. It wasn’t worth it. When I make
hard choices, when I deny my desirous appetites, that’s when I really feel
happy, and I feel good. Why is it so hard to remember that in the moment? When I’ve
spent more time wanting my own way, and I put myself in a situation in which I
have failed before, and sin beckons, and that shiny thing looks so good, and I
tell myself a hundred reasons why it’s okay…that is why I don’t remember that
it doesn’t make me happy.
So I eat the sandwich, and the
fries too (why not, I’ve already messed up?!), and think I’ll be okay.
But it was a lie.
Because my soul longs for something more than empty calories and meaningless worldly things.
My soul's impulse is for something else, my soul DESIRES for eternal things.
When I was single, I used to read this verse and ponder what it meant:
Delight yourself in the LORD, and he will give you the desires of your heart. – Psalms 37:4
At first, I thought it meant if I was serving God, he would give me what I want. Then, I realized that’s not what it’s saying at all. It’s saying that when you give your soul what it truly longs for, yearning toward the Lord, you will start to desire God’s ways more than your own. So God WILL give you the desires of your heart, because you will submit to him in happiness and joy and delight.
Only then do you see that, by limiting your appetite, you set yourself free!
I enslaved myself to my appetite today. I willingly went where I should not have gone and ate what I should not have eaten (wow…that sounds familiar…ummm, Eve?).
Now that I’ve admitted it, I need to do better.
And that, my friend, is the beginning of the battle!
In the future, I'm going to try to tell myself this:
If I have to justify reasons why something is okay, it's probably not okay, and I just need to keep driving!
After all...it's not even real cheese!
