Urgent and not. . .

It occurs to me that one of the distinct problems of sin is our difficulty with time.  No, I am not suggesting that our (read that my) inability to be on time is sin's greater problem for me.  What I am suggesting is that sin has colored how we see things and given us a false view to them and therefore to their urgency.

Not too long ago Jesus lamented that the crowd that had been fed was more interested in bread than in the Word of the Lord.  Yes, they were certainly shallow.  But is that not the real problem created by sin?  We instinctively value the things of the moment higher than the things of eternity and we give into the things of the moment only to create an eternal problem.

They were hungry -- perhaps even hangry!  Hunger burned in their bellies and when Jesus satisfied that hunger, that was all they wanted from Him.  Jesus feared that He would be cast as a bread king until the only thing He could offer to people was what they wanted.  So entered the lauded discourses on the Bread of Life.  Nobody is at their best when the desire in an empty stomach is the only thing they hear.  The Lord does not give in to satisfy the moment before satisfying the soul -- well, at least not always.  In fact He warns over and over again against such a preoccupation.  What good is it if we give our lives for the treasure that fades or molds or turns sour?  Indeed!

The same is true of sexual desire.  It appears to be the single thing that informs everything about us these days.  Who we desire, what we desire from them, and how we feel about those desires dominates every other gauge of our character or our identity.   We have become like the animals who are driven not by something ordered or orderly but instinct alone.  Far be it from us to deny such desires and not give into our sexual drives or feelings -- why, that would be positively subhuman.  Or would it?  Is it not our ability to judge and control and defer our desires what marks us as human, created in the image of God, and distinct from the animals and the rest of God's good creation?  

Our desires are urgent and not simply evil.  We have to satisfy that hunger burning in our bellies.  We have to satisfy our horniness or want for sexual pleasure.  No matter what.  No matter how.  We have all walked around the house looking for the perfect snack or food to answer the desire within.  We have normalized sexual desire to make it available to us through pornography so that it is actually easier to conjure up from the internet an erotic image than it is to find a hot dog and some stale chips to satisfy our hunger.  No wonder we are screwed up.

All those prosperity preachers who tell us to give into desire and that is what God wants us to do are putting lipstick on the pig of sin.  Sin is precisely our inability to reign in the desires inside of us or order them rightly or delay them until an appropriate time.  No matter whether those desires are the swift retort of words to slap down an opponent or the quest for the perfect snack or the want of orgasm, giving into the present desire is always the mark of sin.  Our passion is our undoing while Jesus' passion in suffering is our redemption.  He denied Himself all the way to death on the cross and for us and our salvation set aside instinct for the sake of redemption.  Did He do all of this only so that we could give into our desires without shame or guilt or regret?  Is that the value of the cross?

What is most urgent is that which appears to be the thing you never have to take seriously -- the matters of salvation.  God in His mercy has accomplished all things for our salvation so that we might first of all order ourselves and our desires rightly lest sin gain the upper hand.  We belong to the Lord.  God grant us so to use and pass through the things temporal that we lose not the things eternal.  Pray it and pray it over and over and over again.....