I’m all about diet and exercise these days, and I feel much better as a result. Sure, old age is creeping in and my joints and muscles no longer respond as they did in my younger years, but all in all a healthy lifestyle is worth its weight in gold when you consider the alternative. I believe I may have gone a little overboard on vitamin supplements at one point, but I’ve even managed to get that under control for the present. Yes, it is good to be the best that you can be in all three phases of life: physically, mentally, and spiritually. Hoo-rah.
Who am I kidding? I decided to forgo my mid-morning breakfast of butter-less and sugar-free nuked oatmeal this morning and replace it instead with something better. Heaven on earth has a name and it is ‘Almond Joy’. Of course, that is today – tomorrow it may be one of those monster Snickers bars at least a foot long or so. Or then again, maybe I will splurge and head down to PJ’s for a blueberry scone and one of those sissified coffee drinks where coffee has very little input upon the amount of chocolate contained therein. Yeah, that’s the ticket. And I’ll do that every day until Thanksgiving, at which point they can use me as a Macy’s Day parade-balloon.
Back to reality, I did have an Almond Joy this morning but it was bite-sized so it was not harmful to my waistline at all. Couldn’t be as small as it was. But I still feel guilty as it was something I really did not need, was not actually hungry for, and normally would have had no desire to eat. It was there in the bowl as I passed by the receptionist’s desk, and thus it ended up in my digestive tract.
What bothers me now that I have returned from lunch at the gym is how easy it was to grab that candy bar, peel the wrapper, and pop it into my mouth. It was an almost (almost) involuntary action on my part. Maybe I didn’t have my guard up early enough this morning, or maybe there is something subliminal about the blue and white wrappers used on Almond Joy bars. I’ll probably never know, but it is past history by this point and there is nothing I can do about it. I should have known better, and if/when I am honest with myself, I did.
Being flippant with regards to my diet pales in comparison to how I handle the small, seemingly insignificant sins in my life. I should never become so callous (jaded) to the circumstances around me in our world that could cause me to fall down in my daily Christian walk. It’s a lot easier for me than you might think. I drive in to work from the north end of Picayune at one of the busiest times of the morning. I have plenty of opportunities to lose my temper at those who cannot drive as well as I do. I mean, I seldom use my cell phone when I am behind the wheel and never woolgather when I find myself first in line at the red light. Gr-r-r!
When one of my guys is late for work I can usually see through most of the excuses; I’ve both heard them all before and I’ve used a few of them myself when I was in their shoes not too long ago. It’s so easy to dismiss those excuses and make the judgment in my heart that they are lying to me. I also walk up and into a lot of coffee pot conversations that no Christian should be coerced into hearing, and most of the time I can avoid them. Sometimes I do not. I’m not talking simply off-color jokes here, I believe gossip is bad for any conversation and can probably do a whole lot more harm to others.
What I’m saying today in this blog is that the opportunities for un-planned sin are abundant and can be found behind every corner and turn. A simple relaxation of your guard is all the devil needs to get his foot in the door, and boy, does he love to do that. He exists for it. It’s what he does.
I’m glad I’m not the only one that has faced this dilemma in their Spiritual walk as a Christian. Paul writes: “For I know that in me (that is, in my flesh,) dwelleth no good thing: for to will is present with me; but how to perform that which is good I find not. For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. Now if I do that I would not, it is no more I that do it, but sin that dwelleth in me. I find then a law, that, when I would do good, evil is present with me. For I delight in the law of God after the inward man: But I see another law in my members, warring against the law of my mind, and bringing me into captivity to the law of sin which is in my members. O wretched man that I am! who shall deliver me from the body of this death? I thank God through Jesus Christ our Lord. So then with the mind I myself serve the law of God; but with the flesh the law of sin.”
That’s a mouthful of words in those verses, but it is easy enough to understand for me because I know exactly what he was talking about. Who can deliver me from this seemingly uncontrollable urge I have to sin each day, although I try and do my best not to? Only Jesus Christ can. I’ve got to depend upon Him because I can’t do it on my own. Those casual sins are much too hard to pass by without reaching into the proverbial jar without thinking about it.
No comments:
Post a Comment