July 28, 2011

Lucky Dog


I saw a bumper sticker that read, ‘An Obedient Dog is a Happy Dog’. Watching a dog being totally absorbed in pleasing his master brings a smile to one’s face. I think something similar could be said about believers. We really are happy when we’re obedient…it’s just the obedience training that sometimes wipes the smile off our faces. “This is love for God: to obey his commands. And his commands are not burdensome…” (1 John 5:3 NIV)

1 comment:

Steve Corey said...

Gail;

-----I have smoked before. And I’ve quite before. It’s always been a struggle to quite, because I really did like to smoke. I’m 57 years old, getting too close to my downhill time to have been smoking! And although I had no problem with cigarettes cutting my life short or even with the bummer cancer is, my wife did very much. My love for her makes her problems my problems. So the inconsistency my smoking presented in my love for Char became the greatest point of my habit’s disobedience to God.
-----For a year and seven months of the last year and ten months that I had been smoking again, I had been not wanting to want to smoke, but having to admit I did want to smoke while knowing God would be pleased if I did not. Knowing the constraints this habit creates upon the mind and emotions through its inconsistencies, I began desiring a frame of mind not perpetually burdened with failed attempts at reconciling weak reasons for a bad habit, continuous concern about cancer and my bride’s feelings, and the everlasting swim in the milk of the Word that is interminable confession. I desired a better mental state. But honestly, I desired to smoke.
-----Nine months ago, a dear brother in the Lord (who has now died of cancer) told me how he quit smoking. He picked this up on a tip, too. As he explained, I was to simply write that I wanted to be smoke free for one or more listed reasons and post it where I would see it first in the morning and last before bedtime. I didn’t like reading that thing! I forced myself for a while. And although I never really read it much, I knew what it said. It swirled inside.
-----I think you know I rolled my own cigarettes. Monday, as I rolled the last of my tobacco, the strangest thought about smoking came to my mind - an assertion of my wanting to not do it. And it was not me telling this to myself. It was myself telling it to me. So there was no struggle against it from deeper inside me, because it was coming from deeper inside, and I was in conscious agreement! Since then all I have had to do is deal with the sense that particular situations came with a cigarette that is now missing from them. That isn’t hard. It’s not demanding like a desire. It’s more like just a mental observation.
-----I have brought myself to the profession of not smoking before. But I have always had to honestly admit that I still desired to smoke, basically because it was true. So I smoked again. But this time I recalled how valuable deliberate verb tense is to sealing the deal of a changed habit. I used all forms of past tense regarding my having had desired to smoke, but never the present, future, or future perfect in either thought or speech. I wasn’t going to own that desire again; God gave me the choice. I just wasn’t willing to think it anymore.
-----Now I remember how much self-control God will stir in you through stronger desires for obedience in general, and how much more orderly the mind will begin working in it rather than chaotically fractured by shame and guilt. It’s kind of an “Aha” experience to understand the disobedient dog may be quite sly and wily, but the obedient dog is far more intelligent by being given to training by one much smarter than himself.

Love you all,
Steve Corey