Recently I have been re-listening to a lot of old episodes of the This American Life podcast. One of those episodes was one with stories themed around the Ten Commandments. In the story based on the commandment “thou shall not commit adultery” I was presented with this idea: it may be possible to obey too much. In other words, often we can lead ourselves astray by adhering to the straight and narrow too strictly. In this story author David Dickerson talks about his experience during college trying to control his lustful thoughts. It became an obsession for him and the more he struggled to repress his thoughts the stronger they became. His efforts to rid himself of sexual thoughts he ended up becoming obsessed with sex and he felt like a monster because of it. Eventually he realized that his agonizing over maintaining a righteous mind served to do nothing but distract him from every other aspect of his spiritual journey. The result of this obsession is that we do not bend to temptation but instead strain ourselves until we crack completely.
This idea, I believe, applies to much more than sexual temptation. It can apply to any kind of moral transgression we could be tempted with. Of course we shouldn’t give into temptation whenever it comes (that would be ridiculous) along but the moment we begin to obsess over the temptation we have lost to it. Bending will become cracking and we will find ourselves worse off than ever before.
We are all wretched sinners but we are saved by the grace of God nonetheless.
Thoughts?
Recently I have been re-listening to a lot of old episodes of the This American Life podcast. One of those episodes was one with stories themed around the Ten Commandments. In the story based on the commandment “thou shall not commit adultery” I was presented with this idea: it may be possible to obey too much. In other words, often we can lead ourselves astray by adhering to the straight and narrow too strictly. In this story author Dave Dickerson talks about his experience during college trying to control his lustful thoughts. It became an obsession for him and the more he struggled to repress his thoughts the stronger they became. His efforts to rid himself of sexual thoughts he ended up becoming obsessed with sex and he felt like a monster because of it. Eventually he realized that his agonizing over maintaining a righteous mind served to do nothing but distract him from every other aspect of his spiritual journey. The result of this obsession is that we do not bend to temptation but instead strain ourselves until we crack completely.
This idea, I believe, applies to much more than sexual temptation. It can apply to any kind of moral transgression we could be tempted with. Of course we shouldn’t give into temptation whenever it comes (that would be ridiculous) along but the moment we begin to obsess over the temptation we have lost to it. Bending will become cracking and we will find ourselves worse off than ever before.
We are all wretched sinners but we are saved by the grace of God nonetheless.
Thoughts?