“Be killing sin or it will be killing you.” John Owen
“But Mom, I’m really good at being lazy.” These words spewed from my 15 year old son when I asked him to help me with a task yesterday. I was rushing through food prep and trying like crazy to be on time for Thanksgiving dinner. I just needed some quick help and got a snarky response instead. And while one can chalk it up to teenage hormones or the all-around general bad attitude that flows from the “typical” teenager, I hated to hear those words. Because to celebrate laziness is to buy the lie that its okay.
I feel like I am in a constant war with laziness. Be it my lackadaisical attitude toward my diet, or trusting too heavily on robust workouts to balance out my poor food choices, I have noticed that my overall tendency to replace diligence with apathy is the overarching indicator that I’m pretty good at being lazy too. Because I have felt the static in the air lately, the barometric pressure of fleshly comfort pulsing against my skin in that taunting way that warns and beckons at the same time. I could see the black storm clouds rolling in and I knew I needed to grab an umbrella, or take shelter, or pray. But the excuses piled up, and doing the work of walking to the closet and pulling out the rain gear felt too arduous. So I found myself wandering around in the wind and rain, crabbing about my wet clothes and sulking under the weight of a heavy heart. And I feel pretty silly writing all of that down when I obviously know better.
And I don’t need a bathroom scale to tell me any of this. The lack of joy alone is disturbing, but when peace evaporates too, I know I’m in real trouble.
If spiritual cleanliness is next to godliness, then spiritual laziness is next to godlessness. At least that’s what I think John Owen was trying to say in his epic work, “Overcoming Sin and Temptation.” The battle rages ever on and if I am not fighting, I am losing.
Romans 8:13 “For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.”
One of the fruits of sin I fight against is obesity. So when I am lazy with my thought practices and make poor food choices(like bingeing on my child’s Halloween candy), it’s no surprise that my clothes get tight. But it’s also wrong to to use my waistline as a key indicator of the deep roots sin has in my life. Food is an idol, but so is self. Worshipping myself by eating too much is no different than worshipping myself with a perfectly trim body. Self-worship is my natural tendency and stepping outside of myself is what I have to do to conquer. And since there is nothing inside myself that will save me, I have to turn to my Savior.
Yesterday I jogged/walked in a 5K with the family of Shawn Daugherty. This young man lost his life in a tragic accident on the highway not far from my home. I wrote about his death on my blog before I knew he was my neighbor. He lived directly across the street from me and I came to know his family in the months following his death. They live with his loss every day and the 5K is a means to remember/commemorate his life. I was chasing my 8 year old son when he cut down a side street off the main route. He had seen all the others running and wasn’t fast enough to keep up. He was disheartened because he wanted to win(one of his mom’s pies) and knew he couldn’t. I let him take several shortcuts but made it clear that because of them, he would never win. His ensuing lecture was revealing.
Ephraim insisted that taking shortcuts was exactly how you win, no matter how much I tried to tell him otherwise. And while he eventually came to terms with the fact that he wasn’t taking a pie home, I was fascinated by his logic. He felt that if no one knew he was cheating, it wasn’t actually cheating. I told him God is always watching, but even short of that, Ephraim knew he was cheating, and that’s all that really mattered. A dishonest win is not a win at all. He didn’t agree with me but I am confident he will learn this over time. He is simply fighting the war against sin and self–making his desires more important than others by disobeying the rules of the game. The conversation reiterated to me that I must teach him how to fight against such faulty thinking or he will be forever plucking at the fruit of his sin rather than digging it out by the roots—as I did for so many long and agonizing years.
This war against self is brutal and reminds me of a sermon my then pastor preached years ago on Good Friday. It is etched into my brain because of the great hope it gave me in a particularly dark time in my life. Dave Greiner talked about the darkness of that Friday on Calvary–of the apparent victory of the hosts of hell when Jesus hung dying on the cross. He was quoting someone else when he shouted, “It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming.” He went on to talk about Jesus coming back to life after having lain in a tomb for 3 days. That is the Christian’s only hope. And if it’s not true, we truly are the most unfortunate of followers. Because if Jesus did not rise from the dead, our faith is in a fallacy. I thought about that sermon this morning as I considered my spiritual laziness and the hope I have in one day being free of this dreadful body. It was that analogy that reminded me that I won’t be forever struggling, fighting, and waging the most brutal of battles against myself. One day, I will be free. In other words, Sunday’s coming!
Today is Friday. Today I am fighting against the temptation to let my flesh win. I don’t feel particularly strong or mighty, but I am fighting anyway. Corrie Ten Boom spoke three brave and true words in the notorious concentration camp, Ravensbrook. She said, “Jesus is victor.”
In the war against sin and self, I find those three words to be wonderful because I know them to be true.
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