Who am I kidding?

"Leave me alone! I can quit whenever I want!"

This is what I used to scream at God and I truly meant it.  I wanted Him to leave me alone because I enjoyed the lifestyle I was living before Christ.  Or did I?  Looking back, I was a slave to what I thought was "fun".  My daily life was in bondage to things that were destroying me, yet I loved them enough that my life revolved around feeding something that was never satisfied.

I thought of this as I sat in the dentist chair today.  A few weeks ago I decided to go to the dentist for the first time in 5 years.  I knew that by going that I would find out I had cavities, plus I had made a promise to my daughter that I had to come through on.  That is when I found out that there was damage done to many of my teeth because of the choice I made to not go to the dentist.  I enjoyed the "freedom" of eating candy bars, not flossing, and drinking sugary sodas.  No one caused me to make that choice.  I just made it on my own.  Well, I sat there in the dentist chair getting the first of many fillings and it occurred to me that sin is like the cavity my dentist was drilling out.  On the outside, my tooth looked healthy, but the cavity was between the tooth and my tooth was actually decaying.  I had to make the decision: Was I going to trust what the dentist was telling me?  I had the proof of an x-ray, my dentists experience, and also knowing that I haven't been to the dentist in 5 years, yet I still had to make the decision to trust what was ultimately the truth about myself.  I then had to take that trust, go back to the dentist in the faith that my dentist was going to stop the decay that was rotting my tooth.

That is what sin does to us.  Sin puts on this masquerade that we somehow enjoy it, yet we don't realize that it is openly eating us alive.  We see the effects in our lives, relationships, maybe even damage to our physical bodies, yet we become so blinded by the temporary satisfaction felt that we do not realize the damage it has caused.  We understand that something just isn't right, yet we continue making the decision to let it rot us.



Many of us have struggles in life.  Some people struggle with alcohol addictions, drug addictions, identity problems and pornography.  Others have struggles in relationships, keeping jobs, financial difficulties, or sexual confusion.  Many do a pretty good job at hiding their struggles, while others have given completely in to their problems and no longer see it as a "struggle" or problem.  We lie to ourselves well, while we believe we are lying to those around us.  We are all professional liars.  If you think you aren't, then you are lying to yourself.  The big lie is the feeling we have to hide our problems and struggles.  I have had many struggles in my life that I have had to get past.  They have all come from choices I have made in the past and I will not say that I was "born this way" or that I couldn't help it.  Every "struggle" I have has come from choices I have made and the only person I have to blame is myself.

I understand those who continue to be in bondage.  It's a weird kind of slavery.  You are a slave who enjoys your chains.  You enjoy working for your master that continually wants more, yet is never, ever satisfied.

The good news of all of this is that there is freedom from the struggle.  There is freedom from the rot of sin in our life. I will never forget that which had me in its chains and I know what I have been saved from.  I will never apologize for the freedom that I now understand and fully live in.

Yet, freedom from these struggles also come with a choice.  Imagine a cancer patient who has caught the cancer in enough time to make a full recovery, but refuses treatment.  Imagine someone with cancer loving the cancer so much that they enjoyed it as they wasted away. We would think that person to not be in their right minds.  That is what sin does.  It makes it so we do not think right. We think everything is alright with us, with our thinking, with our "feelings", with who we are, yet God has graciously told us that we have this thing in us that is rotting us from the inside and that He can take it from us.  Then again, that's a choice that has to be made.  Will we continue to let the cancer, cavity, etc. eat away/decay, or will we turn to the One who has made the way for complete freedom and healing?

Then again, these are just Thoughts from Nobody Special.