desire...
Friday, July 10, 2009
being human i struggle with desire, whether it results in over-eating, getting addicted to facebook games, inappropriate lust, or any other failing you care to list. i'm sure it's the same with you. in my attempts to overcome these problems i try to exercise self-denial or self-discipline to restrict my access to whatever it is that i'm wanting to stay away from. sometimes i do really well and am able to stop, but most of the time i fall back into the same problems and i start to think that my desires are too strong to overcome!
in my surfing today i came across a quote from c.s. lewis that i found really helpful:“The New Testament has lots to say about self-denial, but not about self-denial as an end in itself. We are told to deny ourselves and to take up our crosses in order that we may follow Christ; and nearly every description of what we shall ultimately find if we do so contains an appeal to desire.”
denying myself is only the first step, and without the second step of replacing the wrong desire with a a right desire i leave myself wide open to fail again!!
lewis goes on to say:
"Indeed, if we consider the unblushing promises of reward and the staggering nature of the rewards promised in the Gospels, it would seem that Our Lord finds our desires, not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling about with drink and sex and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."so maybe my desires aren't too strong to overcome; maybe they're actually weak desires and i'm too easily pleased!! isn't it funny how i find my wrong desires so much easier to overcome when i'm focussed on God rather than on what i'm trying to fix...
scrawled bysteve at 9:54 AM
