Have I corrected for that?

I have discovered this principle of life—that when I want to do what is right, I inevitably do what is wrong. I love God’s law with all my heart. But there is another power within me that is at war with my mind. This power makes me a slave to the sin that is still within me. Oh, what a miserable person I am! Who will free me from this life that is dominated by sin and death? Thank God! The answer is in Jesus Christ our Lord. (Romans 7:21-25)

When I want this, I do that. Sound familiar? It is a real struggle for all of us. No one is without some struggle with wanting to do what is right and somehow struggling to 'hit' that mark. Don't miss what Paul is saying - the battle or struggle is really within our minds. Our hearts are sure we want to do what is right, but our minds get all muddled up in the temptation that is pulling us in the opposite direction. When I was in high school, I took an archery course. It taught me one thing - aiming for the bullseye didn't ensure I would actually hit it!

So many factors played into hitting that center mark. I might not have enough tension on the bow and the arrow would fall short of the target. I would be aiming a bit too low and miss the rings totally. I might adjust my aim to a bit higher and way overshoot the target. Even when I managed to get within the circles of the target, I frequently did not hit 'dead center'. I saw where I wanted it to go. I adjusted my tension to take the arrow the distance. I refocused my aim, so it matched the 'placement' I desired for the arrow. Yet, I missed the mark! I considered a bunch of factors, but obviously didn't consider all of them! Did I adjust for crosswinds? Nope. Did I adjust for the pitch of the land? Nope. Did I consider my fatigue as the I took each subsequent shot? Nope. I 'thought' I had made all the necessary 'corrections', but as you can see from my illustration, we sometimes aren't even aware of the things that need 'correction'.

To be free from the domination of sin and the pull of our own flesh, we need something (or perhaps someone) with a better understanding of how this freedom is actually accomplished. Sometimes the correction we need is right there in front of us, but we just don't see it. We need God's help to know when our 'spirit' is right, but our 'flesh' is weak. We need his help in seeing how much that 'fleshly weakness' is pulling us toward sin. Our heart and mind aren't always 'sympatico' - they are at odds with each other sometimes! When all the 'right steps' aren't accomplishing the outcome we hoped for, we would be best served asking God if there are things we haven't 'corrected for' in our lives. Just sayin!

Are you keeping those resolutions?

You know I have to ask, and I am not meddling, I just want to do a little 'check-in' this morning. How are all those New Year's Resolutions going so far? How many have we already given up on? How many are we just putting forth half an effort toward? How many have we seen become a very consistent and ingrained part of our lives? If you are like the majority of 'resolution making' individuals, you have probably broken at least one! According to what I could find in research, approximately 40% of us make resolutions, while nearly 25% of those who made them will quit them within the first week! Sadly, only about 10% keep them long-term. I think that speaks very clearly to our 'resolve', doesn't it? 

So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses. (Galatians 5:16-18)

I don't know about you, but letting the Holy Spirit guide my life is a bit of a challenge at times. I get all wrapped up in what I think I can 'resolve' to do myself and don't have a clue just how hard it will be to keep that 'resolve' just a little piece down the road. If you have already broken that resolution, chances are you weren't relying upon the help of the Holy Spirit in either forming those goals, or in keeping them on a daily basis. 

Have you ever heard the expression, "Opposites attract"? In the most literal sense, opposites attract if you are magnets. If we were to consider this term in reference to our weak sinful nature and the powerful help of the Holy Spirit, we might see our issue with keeping our resolutions a bit differently. You see, God knows we will be attracted to things that we should be repelled from (sin). He also knows we need to be 'pulled' toward right living. Is it possible that the power of the Holy Spirit in our lives is able to 'attract' us toward making right choices? I think it just might be!

Pushed or pulled - it doesn't matter. We are moving in some direction hoping it is the right one. It the stronger we are to resist the pull of temptation, the more we will find ourselves 'enabled' to keep those resolutions. This might be the day we take a good look at those resolutions (goals) we have for the year and then take them to God in prayer, specifically asking him to allow his Holy Spirit to 'pull' us toward right choices that help us develop consistency with them. Just sayin!

Not one more cookie!

The resolution to avoid an evil is seldom framed till the evil is so far advanced as to make avoidance impossible. (Thomas Hardy) Ponder Hardy's thoughts for just a moment and you will understand why willpower alone seldom keeps us from eating the candy bar within our fridge! Now, the one still at the grocer's counter is a little harder to actually enjoy, is it not? The nearer the 'evil', the harder it is to avoid - it is within our path and we find things harder to resist when they are in our path!

So give yourselves humbly to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. (James 4:7)

My BFF was sharing about her father's desire to lose a little weight, so he has 'divested' himself of some of the goodies he had 'stockpiled' in the house. The box of chocolates found a new home far away. The rice krispy treats made someone else very happy. The cookies blessed another's family. I imagine the purpose of the 'divestiture' is to ensure the temptation for the 'evil' of those sweets is further away than the cupboard! As long as they remained, there was difficulty avoiding them. When they were gone, there could still exist a 'yearning', but the ability to satisfy the yearning was much harder.

Sometimes the hardest thing for us to remember is that temptation is not all that powerful when we remove the thing from our midst! If it becomes harder and harder for us to ever 'acquire' whatever it is we are tempted with, it is less likely we will 'give into' that temptation. If our 'temptation' is able to be fulfilled by what we eat, we stop bringing that object into our home. If our 'temptation' is acquired and fed through what we view on the TV, then we disconnect from the cable company's feed. If it is indulged through the associations we keep, we begin to change those associations.

The opposite of evil is good - most would agree. Today, many have framed evil in such a way as to believe there are 'degrees of evil' - some not so bad and others at the opposite end of the spectrum. The problem with this reasoning is that what we 'tolerate' as a 'less offensive' evil today will become the norm tomorrow. The evil we once avoided becomes a 'tolerable' or even 'acceptable' evil. It has been brought close enough to begin to tempt us to accept it and believe it is 'okay'. This is shaky ground, my friends, for evil of all types is to be resisted (avoided at all cost).

To resist - give yourselves to God in humility - admitting freely the pull toward the temptation that we feel. God isn't caught off-guard by our admittance of the 'pull'. In fact, he knows temptation exists and he has provided a pathway of escape, but we have to seek his assist to walk that path! Just sayin!