To Do or Not To Do? Do I?

Today's post is short and sweet -- heh heh. Sorry, that's a dad joke, given the content of the post. Actually, I guess since I'm a mom, it's a mom joke. Please read on; don't give up on me yet. :) 

I have a love/hate relationship with diets. I understand that there's a pushback out there against the "diet mentality" -- that there's too much focus on weight and what your scale says rather than simply being healthy, and I get it. It makes perfect sense. Healthy eating, healthy living, making healthy choices, living a healthy lifestyle...

The problem is: I have all the brain knowledge in the world, but if someone puts a chocolate chip cookie in front of me -- it doesn't matter how much I want to keep my healthy lifestyle -- I eat the cookie. 

Side note: I have a weakness for cookies and chocolate. I don't necessarily have a sweet tooth, per se, because you can put a bag of Jolly Ranchers in front of me or Laffy Taffy or something, and I'll ignore them all day long. But soft-baked cookies... I can't leave alone.

Here's an example from a few weeks ago: Someone had brought us a container of chocolate chip cookie bars. Our family each had one for dessert, and there was enough for the next day's dessert, as well. The next afternoon, I wandered by the container on my way through the kitchen to the living room, and I slowed down. And then I stopped as my taste-buds went into overdrive. 

Chocolate would taste sooooo good. It would taste sooooo good right then! I didn't need to wait for supper. Why would I wait for supper? I should eat one right now! And then, if one of the kids decided they wanted something different for dessert, I might even get two cookies that day.

On the other hand, I wasn't hungry. I didn't need it. I'd already had a few not so healthy things that morning (sweet cereal! Ack!), and I shouldn't. I reached for the container. I really shouldn't. I popped the lid off. I don't need this. I picked up a cookie. It's not even warm, Tamara, don't waste your cookie opportunity on a cold cookie. I stuck that cookie in my mouth. Chewed. Swallowed. Ate the rest of it.

It was okay. Meh. With every bite, I mentally scolded myself. Why did I give in? 

Y'all, to be clear, I don't think eating cookies is bad or wrong. My mom used to say: "Everything in moderation." It's an echo of what Paul wrote in 1 Corinthians 10:23: "'Everything is permissible' -- but not everything is beneficial. 'Everything is permissible' -- but not everything is constructive."

I certainly was allowed to have that cookie. That is, there was no law against it, but didn't need that cookie. I felt so guilty about it, because I had already made up my mind not to eat it, and then I ate it anyway... all while I was telling myself to stop.

Anyone else feeling this with me? ;) The thing is... it's not just a battle against cookies. This problem encapsulates the human experience, because it's a battle with sin.

Paul describes all my frustration with this battle in Romans 7:14-20: "We know that the law is spiritual, but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin. (Ouch!) I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do, I do not do, but what I hate to do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me..."

Quickly jumping in: Paul's not saying we are free of moral responsibility as we point to sin and declare: "Sin made me do it!" Rather, he's saying: Sin is so much a part of us that we are bound to it, utterly and absolutely and irrevocably tied to it... except. He's building up to something big here, but hang on, we're getting there.

Paul goes on: "I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do -- this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it."

Again, sin nature. This is a passage that wraps up, with a thousand "do's," the human experience. Paul exclaims in Romans 7:24: "What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?"

I feel like there should be a drum roll here, or at the very least, a "Dah, dah, daaaaahhhh!!"

He answers his own question in the very next sentence: "Thanks be to God -- through Jesus Christ our Lord!" 

Jesus rescues us from this body of death. We are tied to sin, except. We cannot escape sin... but Jesus. 

Jesus, Who broke the power of sin and darkness that reigns in our bodies, Who shattered that power when He died on the cross, freeing us from the power of sin in our lives! We. are. free!

But that's tomorrow's chapter. :)