Posts Tagged: lust
“Lust Versus What God Has Placed in Front of Us”
“Get Serious
4 1-2 Where do you think all these appalling wars and quarrels come from? Do you think they just happen? Think again. They come about because you want your own way, and fight for it deep inside yourselves. You lust for what you don’t have and are willing to kill to get it. You want what isn’t yours and will risk violence to get your hands on it.
2-3 You wouldn’t think of just asking God for it, would you? And why not? Because you know you’d be asking for what you have no right to. You’re spoiled children, each wanting your own way.
4-6 You’re cheating on God. If all you want is your own way, flirting with the world every chance you get, you end up enemies of God and his way. And do you suppose God doesn’t care? The proverb has it that “he’s a fiercely jealous lover.” And what he gives in love is far better than anything else you’ll find. It’s common knowledge that “God goes against the willful proud; God gives grace to the willing humble.”
7-10 So let God work his will in you. Yell a loud no to the Devil and watch him make himself scarce. Say a quiet yes to God and he’ll be there in no time. Quit dabbling in sin. Purify your inner life. Quit playing the field. Hit bottom, and cry your eyes out. The fun and games are over. Get serious, really serious. Get down on your knees before the Master; it’s the only way you’ll get on your feet.” (James 4:1-10, The Message)
“Lust is wanting anything that God hasn’t put right in front of me.” (A comment by a twelve-step friend)
Among other things, lust is a refusal to trust God. When I desire something (or someone) that I don’t currently have, I am saying to God, “You’re holding out on me!” And that is not the sort of thing that someone who trusts God would say.
And why would God not give me something or someone? There are several possible answers to this question. I don’t like any of them, but I need to keep them all in mind.
- I don’t really need what I am wanting. This is more common that is generally acknowledged.
- I want different things that are mutually exclusive. (Eating lots of sweets and snacks and being in good shape comes to mind.)
- What I’m wanting would not be good for me.
- I am not asking God for it. (God gives many good things to me without my asking, but there are other good things for which God expects me to ask.)
- I am asking God for something for the wrong reasons.
So, just for today, I am going to be appreciative of whatever God puts in front of me.
“Lust, Entitlement, and Pride”
One of my fellow addicts summarized his basic struggles (and my own) in the following manner: “My problem was lust, entitlement, and pride.
Lust: I want it!
Entitlement: I deserve it!
Pride: I can handle it!” (Anonymous)
He went on to say that “having a scare” won’t keep you from acting out in your addiction. Only honesty can do that.
Of course, it isn’t just addicts who struggle with lust, entitlement, and pride. These are human struggles. Addictions are just the usual human struggles on steroids, and those of us who are addicts are not a different species, just a different sub-species of human.
We are all responsible for the things we want. Wants can be encouraged or discouraged. The idea that people’s desires are malleable is behind all advertising. Advertising does not exist to tell us where to get what we need. It exists to tell us what we want, and that these wants are needs.
And, if we want something, surely we must be entitled to it, right?
One of the things for which I’ve never been able to forgive my parents is that they never consulted me to see if I actually wanted to be. I think that being is an important choice. They should have taken my feelings about the matter into their considerations!
If I was not entitled to my choice as to whether to be or not to be (and, as Shakespeare famously said, that is the question), then what else am I entitled to claim as my own? Even life is not possessed, only lived. This is true and has always been true. Covid-19 has simply reminded us of this basic fact.
And then, there is pride, the pretense that “I can handle this.” No, you can’t. Neither can I. The truth is that we do need other people. And I believe that we also—indeed, supremely—need God. That’s true for a baby in arms, for the elderly (which I am now), and for a strong twenty-something person. We may not like it, but it is still true.
So, whether you are an addict or not, I hope that you’ll be honest. It might be a good, daily routine to put in place to begin your day with three basic, honest confessions:
- I am responsible for my wants, and I don’t really need to have many of them.
- I am not entitled to anything.
- I can’t and don’t have to do this alone, whatever the “this” is.
I am not promising that this will be a miracle cure for whatever ails you. I am saying, from my own experience and that of many others, that if you will confess these things and live them out, your life will get gradually better and be enriched in a thousand ways.
Of course, the living out of these confessions is the thing, isn’t it?
“Unwelcome Thoughts: Rent-Free ‘Renters’ or Hostage-Takers?”
I frequently have thoughts that I do not welcome. I’m probably all alone in this.
Yes, you are right. I am being ironic in my statement about being alone in this regard. If you told me that you never had any thoughts that were not entirely welcome—and if I believed you—I would be strongly tempted to worship you. However, I would be more likely to think that you were lying.
We all have thoughts of various kinds. Some are good; some are not. Some of the thoughts that I sometimes struggle with are lustful thoughts, fearful thoughts, resentful thoughts envying thoughts, self-pitying thoughts—the list goes on and on. These may be passing thoughts, and that is usually no big deal. However, when they overstay their welcome, that is a problem. Sometimes, they even take up residence. That is a huge problem.
A friend of mine sometimes says that he doesn’t want to give rent-free space to certain voices and thoughts. Such non-paying “renters” need to hit the road. There is no government-mandated moratorium on such evictions. In fact, my sponsor advised me that I serve an eviction notice to these unwelcome freeloaders. Yes!
Here is the problem: These unwelcome thoughts may come as guests, but before long, they become hostage-takers. They aren’t content to stay in a closet or the guest bedroom. They commandeer the entire house. They commandeer me.
Prayer helps. Sometimes other people can help. But ultimately, I myself have to evict these thoughts. The sooner the better!
Sometimes I say to certain thoughs out loud, “No, my mind is not for rent! Besides, you don’t have a very good credit rating.”
Of course, these non-paying “renters” will come back, whining that “this time it will be different.” But it never is. I need to say what a woman said to Ray Charles in a song a long time ago: “Hit the road Jack, and don’t ya come back no more, no more, no more, no more!”
“Heart Reflection/Life Reflection”
“As in water face reflects face,
so the heart of man reflects the man.”
(Proverbs 27:19 The Holy Bible, English Standard Version)
Proverbs, whether those in the Bible or those in use in our culture, are often terse and ambiguous. The terseness is so that we can remember them. The ambiguity is so that we won’t think that we know them better than we do, or take them for granted.
Take Proverbs 27:19 for example. There are various translations that go in different directions. Some suggest that, like a mirror, the heart reflects a person’s life. Other translations suggest that the life of a person reflects that person’s heart.
I looked at the Hebrew in which this proverb was written. It could go either way. So, which way do we take it?
I subscribe to the Yogi Berra school of linguistics. If you come to a fork in the road, take it. In other words, if something in God’s Word is ambiguous, perhaps that is intentional.
So, does our heart reflect our life, or does our life reflect our heart?
My short answer is “Yes!” Heart and life are a cycle, whether that cycle is vicious, virtuous, or (as with most of us) vacillating. A good life reflects good heart, and a good heart reflects a good life.
But it’s not just about reflection. It is about formation. When I look at myself in the mirror, it is not simply for information. I want to see if I need to shave, or if I’ve gotten all the shaving cream off my face and head. I want to see whether my tie is straight. I want to not just see what I look like. I want to do whatever I can to look better. (And you thought it was just women who did this sort of thing? You’d better think again!)
So, if I want to have as good a reflection as possible, I need to ask myself two questions.
The first question is “How is my heart?’ Proverbs says that we need to guard our hearts diligently (4:23). Why? Because “issues of life” (King James Version) come out of the heart. The New International Version says it this way:
“Above all else, guard your heart,
for everything you do flows from it.”
“The heart” in Hebrew does not refer just to emotions or love. Instead, the root lebab “. . . became the richest biblical term for the totality of man’s inner or immaterial nature” (Andrew Bowling, Theological Word Wordbook of the Old Testament, en loc). The Hebrew root lebab has to do with our thoughts and our will, as much (or more) than it has to do with our emotions. While our thoughts and will are immaterial, they are the very material of which our lives are made. In other words, while our will and thoughts are immaterial in one sense, they are most definitely not immaterial in the other sense.
Merely looking good on the outside—or even doing what is good externally—is enough. The question that must be asked, and answered as honestly as possible, is “How is my heart?”
But the second question is equally important. “How is my life?” What we do with our lives affects our hearts. And here, I am not talking about smoking or drinking or high cholesterol, which affect our physical hearts. I am talking about whatever we do in our external lives that affects our will and our thinking, as well as our emotions.
A simple illustration may help. If I eat a bunch of sweets, I am much more prone to lustful thoughts. Sorry to be so frank, but there it is. What good can my blog possibly be to anyone if I don’t speak the truth? Not someone else’s truth, but my own.
So, look at yourself in two mirrors: the mirror of your heart and the mirror of your life. Do you like what you see? If not, pray to God for a change of heart and a change of life. You do not have to do this alone. ln fact, if you’re like me, you will never be able to do it on your own.
“ON NOT WANTING TO KEEP STRICT RECORDS”
I hate math! I don’t like numbers. I never have. But sometimes, it is a good idea to make your hatred work for you.
So, true confession time: I have a runaway mind. I tend to think inappropriate thoughts—lust, self-pity, judgmental thoughts, worry, regrets, you name it. And once I start down that rabbit hole, I am like Alice. I keep falling.
So, I’ve tried an experiment today. I am trying to keep a strict record of all my inappropriate thoughts. I haven’t had a lot of them.
Why? I think because I hate quantification so much. You might say that I have a case of “quantiphobia.” (I thought that I was the first to identify this sort of irrational fear. However, my illusion of creativity was punctured almost immediately by googling “the fear of numbers.” Numerophobia and arithmophobia are fairly common. Oh well!)
So, here is how I’ve been handling inappropriate thoughts today. I have been trying to quantify them. Trying to keep a strict account of my unhealthy thoughts is so intimidating that it is easier simply not to have them.
In a sense, this might be a variation on the tenth step of twelve-step groups: “Continued to take personal inventory, and when we were wrong, promptly admitted it.” Sometimes, just being aware of my tendency to go wrong is a helpful thing. Admissions of truth to oneself are never easy. It is much easier to inflict truth on other people.
Furthermore, I have such an easily distracted mind, and such a contrarian mind, that trying to focus on any unhealthy thoughts for more than a second or two leaves me desiring to distract myself with healthy thoughts. And I am so contrary that if I decide to concentrate on unhealthy thoughts, my mind is prone to rebel, and go to healthy thoughts. (The same is true for me concerning healthy thoughts. If I set out to think only healthy thoughts, I know it’s going to be a long and frustrating day.)
Now, I realize that this is exceedingly strange. I don’t think that this approach would work for most people. I don’t know if it will work for me over the long haul. However, I’m going to try to make it a habitual discipline, and see if it will work. One thing is for sure: It has helped me today!
“UNTIL QUAILS COME OUT OF YOUR NOSES!”
“. . . until it comes out of your noses . . .”
Numbers tells a common tale of human greed, stupidity, and faithlessness. The people of Israel were in the wilderness of Sinai, on their way to the Promised Land. The LORD God was providing manna for them every day, except for Sabbath. However, God was thoughtful enough to provide them a double portion of manna on the sixth day, right before Sabbath.
However, many of the Israelites decided that God’s faithfulness was pretty boring. They were tired of manna. I can hear them now: “Manna for breakfast, manna for lunch, manna for dinner! Fried manna, boiled manna, manna salad, manna casserole! WE HATE THIS MANNA!”
God’s response? He told them that he would send them plenty of meat, and that they would eat until the quail he would send would come out their noses!
Now before you (or I) go off on these ancient Israelites, we probably ought to consider our own selves. A little boy asked his mom, “Do we really need to thank God for leftovers?!?”
Right! Most of us have probably wondered the same thing.
A friend of mine and I were talking about work before our corporate worship service today. He has his own business. I asked him how business was right now. He said something like the following: “Almost too good,” he replied. “But whenever I hit a time when I don’t have a lot of work on the horizon, I start getting worried and cry out to God. Then he sends me a whole bunch of work, and reminds me of the story of the Israelites complaining about not having any meat. God says to me, ‘Pretty soon, you’ll have work coming out of your nose!’”
Complaining is a very serious sin. And it was not unique to ancient Israel. Paul refers to the events of the exodus from Egypt, and warns the Corinthian believers against falling into the same horrible trap.
“NLT 1 Corinthians 10:1 I don’t want you to forget, dear brothers and sisters, about our ancestors in the wilderness long ago. All of them were guided by a cloud that moved ahead of them, and all of them walked through the sea on dry ground.
2 In the cloud and in the sea, all of them were baptized as followers of Moses.
3 All of them ate the same spiritual food,
4 and all of them drank the same spiritual water. For they drank from the spiritual rock that traveled with them, and that rock was Christ.
5 Yet God was not pleased with most of them, and their bodies were scattered in the wilderness.
6 These things happened as a warning to us, so that we would not crave evil things as they did,
7 or worship idols as some of them did. As the Scriptures say, “The people celebrated with feasting and drinking, and they indulged in pagan revelry.”
8 And we must not engage in sexual immorality as some of them did, causing 23,000 of them to die in one day.
9 Nor should we put Christ to the test, as some of them did and then died from snakebites.
10 And don’t grumble as some of them did, and then were destroyed by the angel of death.
11 These things happened to them as examples for us. They were written down to warn us who live at the end of the age.
12 If you think you are standing strong, be careful not to fall.
13 The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”
These Scriptures and my conversation with my friend have left me with uncomfortable questions about myself. Am I taking God’s faithfulness for granted? Am I regarding His faithfulness as routine or boring? Am I complaining, when I really have nothing about which to complain? Do I really want God to discipline me by giving me what I want until it comes out my nose?
How has your nose been here of late?
DOWN TO EARTH BELIEVER
- DTEB, “Getting Christ and Ourselves Back in Focus” November 11, 2024“Col. 3:1 ¶ If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Col. 3:2 Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. Col. 3:3 For you have died, and your life is hidden […]
- “Search Me!” October 27, 2024“Psa. 139:23 Search me, O God, and know my heart! Try me and know my thoughts! 24 And see if there be any grievous way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting!” (Psalm 139:23-24, English Standard Version) I am participating in a Bible study, and this is a prayer […]
- “Christian Speech” October 26, 2024“Eph. 4:29 Let no corrupting talk come out of your mouths, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear.” Foulkes, in his excellent commentary on the Book of Ephesians, writes the following, which I quote at some length: “29. Now the […]
- “God is in the Details” October 11, 2024“The devil is in the details.” (A general saying, often quoted by lawyers, reporters, and negotiators.) “God is in the details.” (Me, almost certainly not original.) “Luke 12:7 Why, even the hairs of your head are all numbered. Fear not; you are of more value than many sparrows.” (Jesus) God does not micromanage, but God […]
- “Grandma’s Pump” October 8, 2024When I was a little critter, I would stay at my grandma’s house for a night or two sometimes. I liked this for a lot for many reasons. One thing I liked about staying with her was that Grandma’s house was much more technologically advanced than ours was. For one thing, she had indoor water—sort […]
- “Wearing the #14 Wrong-Side-Out” October 5, 2024Pete Rose, #14, is dead. Many of the old guys with whom I play softball watched him play and appreciated him greatly. I do as well. He was one of the greatest players who ever played the game. Yes, he admitted (eventually) to betting on baseball. But many of us still regard him as one […]
- “Passing Along the Love (and a Link)” October 4, 2024Several years ago, a friend of mine put me onto a daily meditation by Richard Rohr and friends. I don’t read them all the time, but I probably should. They are good! I thought that today’s writing was especially good, and I also figured that this would be a good way to post something. I […]
- “Witnessing Versus Being Witnesses” September 19, 2024“Acts 1:1 In the first book, O Theophilus, I have dealt with all that Jesus began to do and teach, Acts 1:2 until the day when he was taken up, after he had given commands through the Holy Spirit to the apostles whom he had chosen. Acts 1:3 He presented himself alive to them after […]
- “A Bathroom Prayer for Hurting Hands” September 11, 2024A week ago Sunday, my hands were hurting so badly at church that I went to the bathroom to run hot water over my hands. Arthritis perhaps, or carpal tunnel, or general orneriness—I don’t know why my hands hurt, but they do. They have for years. So, while I was running hot water over my […]
- “Waiting and Seeking” September 10, 2024“Lam. 3:19 ¶ Remember my affliction and my wanderings, the wormwood and the gall! Lam. 3:20 My soul continually remembers it and is bowed down within me. Lam. 3:21 But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: Lam. 3:22 ¶ The steadfast love of the LORD […]
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