Get back on the wagon

I woke up this morning in a rage. I was dreaming that I was pounding the head of my brother in law with my fists as hard as I could. I was so mad at him that when I woke up, as I lay there in my “loopy” dream world of being half asleep and half awake, my state of mind was hot blind rage; so much so that I actually tried very hard to force myself to go back to sleep in order that I might resume my dream where I left off, in order to kick him a couple of times too. As I lay in my bed thinking about it, I slowly began to awaken, and as I became fully conscious and rational, my anger began to subside.

The dream was so realistic that it is probably a good thing that I am in Florida today and he is in Georgia, or maybe I would go looking for him. I’m just kidding of course as he is my “favorite” brother in law, (he earned that status by being my “only” brother in law). Just kidding again, actually he is a nice person and gentle soul and I do not know for the life of me why I dreamed that dream as I have no reason in particular to want to beat him up. I just remember that I was mad as fire at him.

I have had problems with my temper for as long as I can remember. Long term employees tell tall tales of “back in the day” how bad my temper was and how much I have mellowed as time has moved on. (They should have seen it ten or fifteen years prior to their knowing me.) Through the years I have worked very hard to control my temper and anymore I rarely allow it to get the best of me; however make no doubt about it, my temper is still there. I always regret losing it and I often pray to God to give me extra help in this area. Each year I make a list of goals of how I might improve my life and this problem is right up towards the top of my goals. I work my goals hard throughout the year and have begun to bring it under control through God’s help and hard work.

Personally I think I was born with a bad temper. I have had one for as long as I can remember and it was not a skill that I practiced until I became good at it; it was innate and probably another fine example of being a “bad seed”. Nothing good ever came out of losing my temper. I have hurt people, lost friends, jeopardized my career, looked like an idiot, and in my youth on more than one occasion landed in jail for fighting because of it. I “always” regret losing my temper.

When I think about it, this dilemma is endemic of the larger problem of sin in general is it not? We are born with sin, nothing good comes from it, in fact just the opposite we endure pain and distress and suffer because of it, and try as we might to rid ourselves of sin, it is always there just waiting for an opportunity to rear its ugly head.

As with my temper I cannot rid myself entirely of other sins, but make no mistake I can control it through hard work and prayer. Try this in your own life. Identify a particularly troublesome habitual sin in your life and set a goal to conquer it and develop a plan of action. Work the plan hard and no doubt you will see improvement. That sin will still be there waiting to ensnare you; however if you are determined you can elude it most of the time.

Your plan should begin with asking for God’s help in defeating this troublesome sin in your life and end with you asking His forgiveness when you lose a battle or two. God understands our weak natures and realizes that we want to do the right thing and avoid sin, but it is impossible to do so at all times. Remember Jesus is the only one in all of recorded history who avoided sin 100% of the time, so do not get too discouraged when you fall off the wagon. Instead just get right back on the wagon and continue. With all of that said, it makes it easier to plead our case for forgiveness when we work hard to avoid it and not just merely convince ourselves that it is going to happen regardless, so why not do it. Give God some credit, He is much smarter than that He expects us to resist it with all of our fiber, and always remember their are bad consequences to sin as described concerning my temper.

I think that discouragement is definitely one of satan’s vital strategies in attempting to get us to sin. Take dieting for example. You follow your diet religiously, but one day along comes an occasion whereby you are tempted to gorge and you are perhaps weakened from your starvation diet and you indulge. Often one becomes so discouraged for “failing” that they just give up and start eating everything in sight from that point on and before they know it they have blown up bigger than they were than when they began the diet in the first place. What we need to realize is that there are many battles in a war and losing a small battle does not mean that we have lost the war. If you have a moment of weakness and lose a battle, keep it in context, hold your head high, pray for assistance from God and renew your determination to get back on your diet and stay on it. If you fall off the wagon, provided you are not too big to fit back into the wagon, just hop back on it or get a bigger one. Don’t just give in to sin.

The same holds true with any sin. If you succumb, ask God for forgiveness for losing that battle, and His help in winning the next battle and more importantly the war. Remember that a believer never reaches perfection in his life, but whoever abides in Him breaks the perpetual hold of habitual sin brought on by the ravages of satanic influence in our lives. The answer as with all things is in seeking God’s help to break the strangle hold of sin in your life and realizing that faltering on occasion is not a fatal blow thanks to Jesus Christ. He defeated sin because in Him there is no sin. Draw close!

1 John 3:5
And you know that He was manifested
To take away our sins, and
In Him there is no sin.