DON'T - BECAUSE I SAID SO

Say you are walking down the street or surfing on your computer and you come across something that is a great temptation to you – porn – drugs – gossip – over indulgence – anger – (insert your own temptation here) – why might you turn away? One reason might be because you were taught, “Don’t.” “Don’t do this or you will go to hell or suffer punishment.” This may be absolutely true, something we need to know it and hear about, but it is hard to sustain a virtuous life simply avoiding things.

Think of it this way: say you were to get married. What if instruction in marriage were all about avoiding things. “You cannot murder her. You cannot cheat on her. You cannot make her do all of the chores around the house. You cannot leave the toilet seat up. Etc. etc. etc.” How tiring would it be to spend the next fifty years constantly focusing on the negative – what you can’t do?

A spiritual director I once had talked about the body not hearing negatives. Golfers will understand this. If your ball is laying with a perfect shot between it and the hole with a tree just off to the left and you say to yourself, “Don’t hit that tree, don’t hit that tree, don’t hit that tree,” you will hit that tree though you wouldn’t be able to hit it with the next fifteen intentional shots. That is because the body only hears, “Hit that tree.” Similarly ethics taught solely via negative can provide many problems. Only teaching a list of “don’ts” can provide a list of possible things to do.

So say you were walking down the street or surfing on your computer and you come across something that is a great temptation to you and you choose not to indulge in it because you love. It is like in marriage, you don’t have to be told, “Don’t murder her or cheat or make her do all the chores,” because you would never dream of doing those things out love for her. In the spiritual life we reach a higher realm of love of our Creator if we avoid sin because of our love for Him. How much easier it is to avoid sin if we do so not because we were told, “don’t”, but out of the true gift of Fear of the Lord. That is: not wanting to do anything that will place something between my Father and me.

Of course, we do have to teach “don’ts”. And we can’t fall into the “God loves you and will bring you to heaven no matter what” mentality of the 70’s and 80’s. The middle way is to engage in a loving relationship with our Father. Strive both to avoid faith as a science of sin or of mindless a love fest, but of a true relationship in truth. This is not an "easy way" to do faith, it is very difficult when done correctly. But it is also the whole point of our faith.