Unshackled Moments ~ July 17 ~ Serial Killers

“Thou hast made us for Thyself and our hearts are restless until they repose in Thee,” 

~St. Augustine

Fighting sin sucks. Standing our ground and waging war against the selfishness and addictions that keep us in bondage is draining and difficult. It is often tempting to just give in anyway since we're going to lose eventually. I used to do that all too often. "You know you're going to drink sooner or later," I'd tell myself. "Might as well get it over with and make this knot in your stomach and the shaking hands and the headache and the blah blah blah whine whine whine go away." And I would cave. The longest I held out in this battle of the wills with myself was around three months, but that was at the end of a 15 month sober streak.

You can't struggle with temptation and win. The word of God tells us to flee temptation. not to fight it. You won't win. Because what makes it tempting is the fact that at least part of us wants to give in, wants to engage, wants to slip back on the chains and get comfortable in our sin and satisfy the craving, whatever that craving may be. But that won't work either. True satisfaction never comes from feeding addition, giving in to sin, or living for self. Nothing is ever enough. Within seconds of crossing enemy lines and collaborating with the one trying to keep us in bondage, trying to steal and destroy the freedom and every good thing our Daddy wants for us and ultimately trying to kill us there is relief. There's a sense of relief when the struggle ends and the pressure and anxiety are removed, even when the result is bad. I've known many people, including myself, who have at least once had  rest and sleep for the first time in too long shortly after being thrown in a cell.; Relief is not the best goal, and when it comes at the expense of us returning to the slavery and bondage of our spiritual Egypt, it never lasts long either.

The relief is short-lived and the struggle begins again. Sometimes in a few seconds, sometimes days but sooner or later the guilt over giving in and doing what part of us hates and what we've promised ourselves and others and God that we were going to do better about grows and the pressure builds again. It's a cycle of sin and destruction. And we can not fight it. On Criminal Minds they attribute the same behavior to serial killers who kill, have a cooling off period, fight the passion and pressure that builds, give in and hunt, kill again. The problem is the the pleasure of the kill diminishes every time and the cooling off period, that short peace, gets shorter and shorter.

Trying to answer the pain and pressure by pursuing pleasure turns us into slow-motion serial killers who kill the part of us that is a new creature, innocent and just before God over and over by introducing sin back in to soul of the sinless. God gives us a clean slate and makes us knew, gives us life and through the same selfishness that caused us to need His sacrifice in the first place we make sure we need it  again. We return to Egypt. We put back on the chains. We dance on our way to self-destruction.  That's what always happens when we try to fight our old nature and resist temptation with our own wills, with our own minds and in our own strength.

We are made to find rest in our relationship with our Daddy. We are set free by His grace and power and not our own. It is that same grace and power that keeps us free and gives us the ability to continue in the right direction. And when the sirens call again? When temptation whispers to us in our own voice? When the dissatisfaction grows once more as pressure to return to Egypt? He is once more the only answer that brings life.

Today I celebrate 62 months of being clean and sober from drugs and alcohol, but before I can preen about that too much I remember that in the last few hours, within moments of waking I failed in other areas, I shook my hands to feel the shackles and felt relief at the familiar comfort of their presence and my selfishness still in tact. One day I will be completely like Jesus and unable to hear  the ghost of the man I was before calling me to sin. Until then, I need to quite trying to fight that old nature, quit struggling with sin, quit resisting temptation, just quit trying to do it and surrender to the only One who can. We all need to stop acting like serial killers hiding in the remaining darkness of our hearts targeting our own souls.