Foresight or Hindsight?

The Lord sees everything, and he watches us closely. Sinners are trapped and caught by their own evil deeds. They get lost and die because of their foolishness and lack of self-control. (Proverbs 5:21-23)

As a child, I'd try to blame someone else for the "wrongs" I had done. If it was me who snatched a cookie out of the cookie jar before dinner and left a trail of crumbs right up to where I was sitting playing, I would try to deny it was me! I also remember the time mom came home to find my mouth black and my breath smelling heavily of anise only to hear me deny repeatedly that I had been into my grandmother's licorice candy! I denied because I knew the admittance of guilt would bring punishment - but denial doesn't EVER guarantee escape! It only shifts the blame or focus for a moment, but not for the "savvy" parent. The parent who loves and knows their child will not be caught off-guard by the child's adamant denials! In fact, they will pursue the denial until the child squirms a little and finally admits to the "crime"! Why? They love us too much to let us get away with the "sin"! God loves us in the same way - pursuing us until we admit we are trapped by our sin and cannot find a way out.

God sees everything. My own guilt "found me out" most of the time. In the most literal sense, sin (or our lack of self-control) has a way of "trapping us". Guilt is like a trap - it encompasses us, making us feel like there is no way out, and then strings us up until we cry "uncle". If you are strung up long enough, you are eventually cut off from all things which are your life supply - like food, water, and exercise. In the trap, you wither and die. Guilt is so powerful because it "cuts us off" from those things we need - like fellowship, freedom to move, and nourishment. A trap is any device, strategy, trick designed specifically for catching something "unaware". Our own lack of self-control presents all the right circumstances so as to create this opportunity to be "caught unaware" - simply because we weren't paying attention to where we were heading or what we were setting ourselves up to do. We usually wake up making a fresh commitment NOT to do something that almost always ends up in us making some foolish decisions and pursuing something we should have left untouched.

This "self-control" problem is not new! When God created man in his own image, he also created this ability for self-control deep within man. In the same manner, he created us with the ability of choice. If man chooses wisely, exercising a little self-control (restraint), then man doesn't deal with the other thing God created - his emotions (guilt). If man chooses unwisely, allowing all restraint to fly out the window, then he will also deal with the conflict of emotions which come as a result of having pursued something he intended to avoid in the first place! We are not designed to be solely reliant upon our self-control! Too many times we live very defeated and guilt-ridden lives simply because we think we have to avoid sin completely by our own doing. God also created us with this "space" within each of us that is the place we call "spirit" - the place he is designed to inhabit. If we allow this space to be filled with the Spirit of God, then we find we have help to avoid the traps! The sad thing is that we sometimes set the traps we fall into, while at other times they are set for us. We cannot always be aware of the ones being set for us, but we can be keenly aware of the ones we are setting for ourselves. The Spirit of God within can trigger our awareness - we just have to ask him to do so and then be willing to listen when he does!

It is important to have a living and vital relationship with God - so we can call upon him, learn from him, and be guided by his "fore-knowledge" of what lies ahead. The closer we are to him, the easier it is to avoid the traps! The more we avoid the traps, the less guilt we have to deal with. The less guilt we have, the freer we will be in our worship and adoration of our Lord. That is what God intends for his kids! Just sayin!

Aha! Now I see it!

Catherine the Great - ever heard of this leader of Russia? She was renown in her time, bringing great increase to the Russian economy throughout her reign. She did much to increase the vast territory of Russia, even extending Russian development into the Alaskan territory. In her brief 67 years on this earth, she took over as Queen after the death of her husband and with increasing help from great generals, admirals, and armies she was able to make Russia the fastest growing country of the time. She is quoted as saying, "I am one of the people who love the why of things." In this respect, we are a lot alike, because I live to understand the why behind things. There are times it gets a little exasperating to not get at the "why" behind a matter - but I keep driving toward it until I can somehow get it fully revealed. She made another very keen observation I wanted to share with you this morning: "For to tempt and to be tempted are things very nearly allied - whenever feeling has anything to do in the matter, no sooner is it excited than we have already gone vastly farther than we are aware of."

But those who chase riches are constantly falling into temptation and snares. They are regularly caught by their own stupid and harmful desires, dragged down and pulled under into ruin and destruction. (I Timothy 6:9 VOICE)

One of the things I have often pursued the "why" behind is this pull of what serves as temptation to me (and others, for that matter). It is kind of an elusive thing at times - evading discovery because it is masked by all manner of pride, fear, and mistrust.  I think Catherine may have hit the nail on the head with her observation, though. You see, she indicates what most of us already somehow know, but fail to fully recognize in our "fight to resist" the ugly temptation in front of us.  It is simply the mistrust we have in our feelings - we rely upon them way too much!  When feeling has entered the picture, we find we go way further than we ever intended to go. Intention is the thing behind our will-power, but feeling is the enemy of our intention!

It is important to recognize temptation is not a "thing" that just happens somewhere along the way.  It exists all around us, but isn't really all that recognizable because it is there as a "trap" and as my pastor so eloquently put it last weekend, traps aren't meant to be seen!  They are called traps because you don't easily recognize them!  You wouldn't step into one if you knew it was going to fling you twenty feet into the air and leave you suspended like a ham in the smokehouse!  What causes us to not see the trap?  It isn't that we are incapable of recognizing the trap, it is that we aren't really looking for one!

The "why" behind temptation may very well be the mistrust we place in our emotions (feelings).  We allow them to carry us along, almost without any constraint or restraint.  Then in a moment in time, we are caught up in the trap, dangling there wondering how on earth we ended up where we are at the moment.  As Catherine so aptly pointed out, as soon as our feelings are "excited", we have been carried way further into the temptation than we might really be willing to acknowledge.  As so many have told me, they didn't see it coming!  Truth be told, we did "sense" it though - we "felt it" and we didn't know how to resist or constrain those feelings.

The why behind temptation may not always be a specific action, but rather a trust in a particular "feeling" or "emotion" more than we recognize.  We pay attention to the feeling more than we pay attention to our well-orchestrated plan to resist!  The sooner we understand the pitiful state of trusting in what we feel over trusting what we know to be true, the sooner we will begin to see the clever trap laid at our feet!  Just sayin!