Lose the sugar...

A doctor friend told me I was eating too much sugar.  He has a gift for stating the obvious.

On his advice, I set out to go an entire month without sugar – in any of its delightful and insidious forms.  It was so the right thing to do.  But it wasn’t easy.  I fell off…  No, make that jumped off…  I jumped off the wagon a couple of times, but I was much more successful that I ever imagined possible – and much better off for the effort.  And for these past few weeks I have been maintaining low-sugar intake.

God-talk can be like that.

When you commit to seriously talking with and listening to God, be prepared.  God may cause – or allow – every bad choice, every casual sin, every thoughtless decision to come home to roost.  If you want to talk to God, if you want to hear from God, in a serious manner – not just the quick, perfunctory and convenient kind of God-talk most of us settle for…  If you want a genuine, adult, intimate conversation with God, you’ll probably have to work your way through piles of refuse generated by days or months or years of allowing sugary-sweet now-I-lay-me-done-to-sleep prayers to pass for real conversation.

But it is so worth it.

When I started on this prayer journey, my life was a mess.  It still is.  Bad choices, impulsive decisions and unacknowledged mistakes litter my world like Lego blocks and Hot Wheels after our youngest grandson has come for a visit.  Not to mention the fruits of my deliberate selfishness and misdeeds.

God said, “Clean up your mess, son, then we’ll talk.”

Workin’ on that, Abba.  Workin’ on that.

But here is the other side of what I have found.  We don’t have to clean up the whole mess.  We just have to begin cleaning up the mess.  We soon find Father stooping beside us and joining in.  In fact, he does most of the heavy lifting.  And while we are down on the floor, working together, clearing away the mess, we talk – real, honest, loving conversation.  No sugar.  No empty fluff.  Just Abba and I being friends. 

And that’s the good stuff.

Playing Spiritual Whack-a-Mole

Have you ever played Whack-a-Mole?  You know, that game where mechanical moles pop up, and your job is to whack them with a mallet?

I’m  guessing that even if you haven’t played Whack-a-Mole at Chuck E. Cheese’s you’ve probably played a spiritual variation of the game.  It happens when we are tempted to sin – to deliberately do something we know is wrong.

• SIDEBAR:  Temptation is not sin.  Temptation is the enticement to commit sin.  Temptation only becomes sin when we embrace it.  Some famous dead guy* once said (and I’ve heard it attributed to several famous dead guys): “You may not prevent a bird from landing on your head, but you can stop it from building a nest there.”

When temptations come, for most of us the call goes out for the spiritual Whack-a-Mole mallet.  It’s time to do some serious temptation whacking.  After all, everyone knows that we should resist temptation.

No.  We shouldn’t.

Try this little experiment.  For the next 30 seconds, don’t think about an elephant.  Gray, white or even pink – don’t think about an elephant.  Don’t even imagine silly cartoon elephants dancing about in frilly tutus.  No matter what, don’t think about an elephant.

Too late.  You’ve already done it.  In fact, you have to think about an elephant just to envision what you’re not supposed to think about.  And that’s the problem with trying to resist temptation.  You have to focus on the temptation in order to resist it.  Then you begin whack-whack-whacking that tempting mole – or elephant – with your Whack-a-mole mallet.  But once you’ve beaten it down in one place, it just pops somewhere else.  Whack, whack, whack, whack, whack.  Before long, you’re spending all your time whacking temptations.

It never works.  In case you didn’t catch that: IT NEVER WORKS.  Sooner or later, temptation gets the best of you – even if it’s the temptation to be proud of how successfully you are resisting temptation.  It’s a sucker’s game, and the house always wins.

• SIDEBAR 2: When you spend your time and effort unsuccessfully resisting temptation, your relationship with your Father goes to hell – literally.  You can’t build a relationship with your Father in prayer and play spiritual Whack-a-Mole at the same time.

Most of us try to resist temptation.  Scripture does not tell us to resist temptation.  Scripture tells us to flee from temptation (and resist the devil – which is a topic for a future post). 

Here’s the biblical formula.  It’s pretty simple:

• Recognize the temptation – knowing that the temptation itself is not sin.
• Say, “No!”  The people around you may think you’re nuts, but it usually works best to say “No!” out loud.
• Flee.  Immediately remove yourself from the situation.  I call this “pulling a Joseph.”  Just as Joseph ran away from Potiphar’s licentious wife, leave your coat and flee.
• Pursue righteousness.  Paul wrote:  “…flee from all this, and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance and gentleness.”**  In another place he wrote: “…whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things.”  Immediately replace the temptation with thoughts and actions that will take you in a different direction.

If you want to talk with God, don’t wreck your relationship trying to overcome temptation.  Lay down the Whack-a-Mole mallet and step away.  Pull a Joseph.  Pursue right actions and right thoughts.

You can do this. 

Richard

*He said it before he was dead, of course.
**1 Timothy 6:11 (New International Version, ©2011)
***Philippians 4:8 (New International Version, ©2011)

Crawling out of the doghouse

It has been nearly two weeks since Valentine’s Day.  Perhaps it’s safe to poke my head out of the doghouse for a moment.

I did a very bad thing.

Money being a little tight, Paula and I agreed not to exchange gifts or go on a fancy date.  Instead, we planned a modest dinner at a “family dining” restaurant a few blocks from home.

I forgot.

I did not intentionally break the date.  She wasn’t stood up on purpose.  I got busy doing things that were good and helpful to others.  I did not mean to ruin the evening.  I just forgot.

And that is inexcusable.

I deserve the dog house.  I hurt the one person I care about more than any other person in the world.  If she had forgotten me, I would have been hurt.  But it hurts even more knowing that I hurt her.  It isn’t about missing an important day.  It isn’t about missing out on some time together.  It isn’t even about romance – or the lack of it.  The real issue is that I allowed little things, secondary things, non-essential things to crowd out the all-important things.  I let the mundane distract me from the extraordinary.

There is no pain quite like the pain of causing pain to someone you love – someone who loves you.

But there are some lessons for me here -- and for anyone who wants to talk with God.  Let's not miss them.

God has been teaching me: An essential aspect of prayer is relationship building.  In prayer we build and strengthen our relationship with Avinu*, Our Father.  He has loved us since before he spoke the world into existence.  He delights to hear our voices.  He willingly shares and feels our hurts and disappointments.  To him, the mundane aspects of our lives are important – even extraordinary.  But when we allow those mundane things to crowd him out of our thoughts and actions, we damage that relationship.

Prayer starts here: 

• Realizing that an important part of prayer is building our relationship with God. 
• Treasuring that relationship so much that we won’t let anything else get in the way.
• Being so in tune with that relationship that we're careful not to hurt or disappoint the one who loves us. 

These are lessons I need to learn in my relationship with the people I love -- and with God.  How are you doing in these areas?  Think about that.

Richard

*Hebrew for "our father"