Private Wars

Every Monday we’ll post something about maintaining your sexual integrity. Hope it helps.

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Private Wars

Dearly beloved, I beseech you as strangers and pilgrims, abstain from fleshly lusts, which war against the soul. – I Peter 2:11

The way we stuffed ourselves last week underscores one of life’s hardest truths: what we crave is often at odds with what we really want.

We crave delightful food, viewing, smelling, then biting into the good stuff with relish. And we’re doubly grateful for a national holiday greenlighting our gluttony, a day to give thanks and indulge, mightily.

But we also want tight abs, low body fat and healthy hearts, and what we crave is hardly getting us there. So what appeals to our appetite wars against our soul, forcing choices between desires and standards. I’ll make an educated guess that your desires won out Thursday and, if you gorge on leftovers like I do, Friday through Sunday as well. Standards are taking over again today, as they should, hence your hard morning workout, fresh re-commitment to diet, and dread of the scale’s cold assessment of your sins.

But some sins are harder to work off than others. What I applied to my gut won’t take too long to burn off, but what I’ve put in my head, much less acted on, is immune to the treadmill. And that’s when I get a real appreciation for the power of lust which, as Peter said, wars against the soul.

Whenever we give in to lust instead of abstaining from it, the thing we’ve taken in – the image, fantasy, whatever – fires shots at our conscience, focus, confidence and energy, and the casualties mount. Every decision to deliberately lust hardens the heart, as does every lie told to cover the sin. Boldness is diminished when we know we’re repeatedly entertaining what has no place in our lives, a false sense of entitlement is nurtured each time we say, as did Lucifer, “I Will”, and, like someone who’s gobbled up too much sugar and starch, our entire system is bogged down because we’ve taken in what we should have, as Peter advised, abstained from.

So the Christian man who lusts is a man doing battle with himself. By free choice he introduces an enemy into his system who dismantles key parts of the man, parts he values yet sacrifices, then laments over, prayerfully reclaims through repentance and promises, then sacrifices again. It’s war and, as always, war is hell.

Yet out of the ashes a realistic hope can rise. We can let the extra pounds we earned from our Thanksgiving binge serve as a wake-up call, reminding us of what we really want and are willing to strive and sacrifice some comfort for. Likewise we can let the damage down by repetitive lust awaken in us a fresh observation: What matters the most to you is worth the discomfort you’ll experience when you say no to whatever interferes with it, however pleasurable the thing you’re saying no to may be. God will love you no less, certainly, if you say yes to the poison, but the stuff will do it’s dirty work on you all the same. You, today, have the option of avoiding a needless war and all the carnage going with it. And considering the number of legitimate battles you have to fight daily, doesn’t it make all the more sense to excuse yourself from needless skirmishes, reserving your energy and focus for the necessary ones?

Know who you are today. Know what matters most. Know that at times you’ll crave what’s counterproductive to what matters most, and that, when the cravings hit, then you, Mr. or Ms. More Than a Conqueror, can file a conscientious objector notice and sit this one out.

Because we both know that when you do, you’re really not missing a thing.