From Root to Fruit: Vigilance in Loathing Sin

I was wrist deep in the most beautiful batch of chocolate chip cookie dough you have ever seen. And when I say wrist deep, I mean that I was scooping spoonfuls into my mouth. No one was home to witness my transgression. In fact, no one ever need know about it. The problem was, I knew about it. And what started as a means to relax my grip on my regimented food plan, quickly devolved into a nightmare. What was I thinking? Had I lost my mind? I was several months into my journey to lose weight and I saw myself taking a hard turn, rolling my vehicle, and crashing over the cliff. So I did something brave and simultaneously very painful: I pitched the rest of the dough into the trash. And then I started to weep.

I am always one batch of chocolate chip cookie dough away from regaining all the weight. If I sound overly dramatic, I’m not. The choice is always there. I have happened across some really challenging days where I stopped and asked myself, why am I doing this? What is the purpose of this journey? That is why my motives are so important. Because when it comes down to it, when I want cookie dough, I’m going to eat it if I don’t have a very powerful reason not to.

Let me be clear, I’ve worked very hard to establish healthy habits. I eat lots of fresh vegetables, lean meats and fruits. Because I fill my body with healthy foods and I feel relatively good because of it, I’m not really tempted to gorge myself on White Castle. I don’t “crave” it. But when I’m hurting or frustrated or crabby, bring on the cookie dough! And that is when it is most important to be vigilant. I have to go back and remember why I began this journey in the first place. And the true reason is this: I loathed my sin.

I didn’t always loathe it. In fact, for most of my life I loved it quite a lot. I loved all of the processes around procuring certain foods, preparing them and devouring them. They were my sweet comforts and I refused to be parted from them. My addiction to food taps into my deepest insecurities, my deepest longings and my deepest fears. For these reasons I was willing to lie to myself, cheat myself and sacrifice lasting peace to continue on that path of destruction. This was my fatal flaw; I thought the grace of God was enough to cover my iniquity. Surely he knew I had no willpower to stop and he understood my weakness. I knew they he loved me, and I cherry picked Bible verses that told me so. I built a brick wall, brick-by-brick-by-brick, and said, “nothing can separate me from the love of God” but I avoided passages like Romans 6:1-4. That is why the very first passage I memorized to keep me accountable was this:

“Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions.” – Romans 6:12

Now maybe you are reading this and thinking that overeating, or eating foods that are not exactly healthy for your body is not exactly sin. To this I would quote Susanna Wesley.

“Whatever weakens your reasoning, impairs the tenderness of your conscience, obscures your sense of God, or takes away your relish for spiritual things, if anything increases the power and authority of the flesh over the spirit, that to you becomes sin, however good it is in itself.”

Food does all of that for me. And that is why I must be vigilant in my fight against the flesh.

I am sad that I only came to loathe my sin because of the terrible consequences of it. I allowed my flesh to take such complete control of my body until I was its absolute slave and (I perceived) hopelessly trapped. I sat at the bottom of that deep and dark well and mourned the wispy sunbeams that came in. There was a way out but I refused to see it. And now, I honestly don’t believe it is possible to break any addiction unless you cultivate an absolute hatred of it. Because that is what it takes to break free; hatred of sin and the humility to allow the grace of God to pour in and heal all of the brokenness that addiction leaves behind.

Today if you are reading this and you think there is no help or hope for your addiction, be encouraged! Taking on one’s own body is not an insurmountable task. Sometimes, as it was for me this morning, it is walking through one arduous moment after the next with only the grace of God to sustain me. But here is the wonderful news, his grace has always been more than enough. When we are willing to lay down our love of sin–to loathe it with every fiber of our being–He is faithful to pour his love into our hearts, and give us the strength to heal and overcome our flesh.

While we are on this earth we will always be fighting. I will probably always want to eat too much. But that is why I love Jesus. His tender mercies never fail. They are new every morning. Even when I eat cookie dough. Even when I despair. And with his help I keep a vigilant watch and continue to remind myself that I love Jesus completely, and completely loathe my sin.