Bad Choices Have Consequences...
…And Other Life Lessons I Probably Should Have Figured Out Before Now.
Photo from Unsplash
Last night, we had some sweet friends over for dinner and they brought the makings of ice cream sundaes for dessert. I LOVE ice cream. In fact, in my twenties, I went to bed almost every night with a three scoop bowl. Ice cream is my choice comfort food. But in my mid-twenties, I began dealing with chronic inflammation and random health issues that seemed like a mystery at the time. I didn’t figure out until pretty much after having all four of our babies that my food choices were having a significant negative impact on my body. My diet has changed radically in the past ten years. But sometimes I just want what I want, you know. And last night I gave into the temptation. I helped myself to two (kinda smallish) bowls of ice cream before bed. I mean, how could I resist? We even had Reeses magic shell and M&Ms! I reasoned that one night of partying like it was 2008 wasn’t going to bother me too much. Sometimes I can get by with just feeling a little crummy.
I was wrong.
I could barely wake up this morning. I felt lethargic and achey. This summer I’ve been waking up ready for an outdoor walk, swim, or tennis. Instead today, I kept crankily demanding my husband hit the snooze button. I finally rolled out of bed like a curmudgeonly troll a couple hours later than normal- my throat scratchy, my nose stuffy, my mind foggy, and a bit of a headache lingering on. After not just last night, but admittedly several days of eating excessive amounts of sugar and dairy, I realized I’d had enough of my own bad choices. I begged my husband to take all the chocolate and ice cream from the house.
Brian may have rolled his eyes, but he obliged. This isn’t the first time he’s been tasked with helping me work through a sugar addiction.
I don’t consider myself much of a philosopher but I operate on a few philosophical principles I think are pretty self-evident. Something I believe is that we’re all are prone to craving in some capacity. The way we’re wired as humans has us bent on desire (or what religious folks would call worship). Theologians throughout the ages have said our hearts are longing until we find fulfillment in God. In fact, St. Augustine was preaching that message in the fourth century (“You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You”) and in the 1990s the same message was being sung by a Christian band named Plumb (“There’s a God-shaped hole in all of us and the restless soul is searching…”)
The thing is, even as a Christian who believes Plumb and Augustine were right on, I don’t always try to fill my cravings with God. In fact, I usually have plenty of other things I’m willing to try first. While I can think of plenty of things I like to worship, typical struggles for me these days involve the smart phone and sugar.
When I idolize my phone, I miss out on time with my loved ones. This type of consequence is delayed and harder to quantify. I justify it by saying it’s my time and I deserve to check out. But at the end of the day, I know I’m never getting time back and time is one of the most valuable assets any of us has. When I choose a mindless hour of scrolling or a Netflix binge instead of intentionally investing in a relationship, what am I doing? It’s something that leads to frustration and resentment, not joy or contentment.
And when I choose an indulgence of chocolate and sugar and dairy- all things that I adore and that I can justify by comparing and saying it’s only fair for me to have what anyone else gets and life’s too short to be so restrictive in one’s diet- I know that no amount of momentary justification will block out the feeling of unwell I will experience later. And to be honest, sometimes I just choose to be selfish and have what I know will potentially destroy me. Because I want what I want. And frankly, bad choices sometimes just feel good in the moment and how dare someone (my own conscience for heaven’s sake) tell me what I can or cannot do?!
That, is the what the Bible describes as the sin nature: The desire I have to put me and my desires first. Now, I’m not against sugar or the phone in theory. Both function in moderation and with boundaries. I can even have ice cream on a rare occasion. But as I get older, I’m realizing that anything except God being the ultimate thing robs me of good things I actually want in my life. When my desire for anything- even good things- become ultimate, they have a way of destroying. It shouldn’t be a shocker, but when I try to put anything in place of where God should be, as the ultimate thing, I tend to suffer some bad consequences.
We were having a discussion on the Finding Something REAL podcast about this recently. One of my cohosts asked if you’re a bad Christian if you don’t put God first. The guest who answered her was honest when he said, “None of us do.”
The first and greatest commandment is to “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind” (Matthew 22). In the Old Testament, the ten commandments start out similarly, “You shall have no other gods before me.”
What hope is there if we all break these commandments every single day?
C.S. Lewis the great theologian, author, and Oxford scholar once wrote, “There are only two kinds of people in the end: those who say to God, "Thy will be done," and those to whom God says, in the end, "Thy will be done."
Maybe the fact that we can’t do it on our own is the whole point. We all make bad choices. Like Josh White, the pastor at Door of Hope in Portland, OR often says, the marker of the Christian life isn’t a ladder we climb, but a cross of surrender.
Jesus, I want your will to be done in my life. Even when I don’t think I want your way. Help me want it. My own desires apart from you, lead to destruction. Every day, help me to surrender. You said you are the way, the truth, and the life. There is no one else. (John 14:6) Whatever you have, I want that.
Teach me that truth. Even on the days where I’m surrounded by the best ice cream, the most captivating Netflix show, and the temptations this world has to offer in anything else- teach me that you are better. Because you’ve always been and you always will be.