EASY COME EASY GO?

Do you every wish/pray that a particular temptation will be taken away so that you might be free to be a better Christian/spouse/parent/friend/sibling/child . . .

You know . . . if it wasn’t for this strong desire (maybe addiction) you could be such a better man or woman for others.  It is awful!  The temptation seems to sit there at the back of your mind, waiting for a moment of quiet or the right opportunity to flare up and demand your attention.  Your love would be purer if only God would grant this one wish - perhaps it is the wish that Paul had - take this thorn from my side.

Now maybe it would be a good thing for it to go away.  Maybe you would be happier.  Maybe life would be easier.  But it does not necessarily mean that you will love better or truer.

 

Think of it this way:  If the person you choose to love lives in the same, safe, middle class home with you and each morning you can wake up and kiss that person on the nose and say, “I love you.”  That is nice and loving and beautiful and doesn’t cost you much.  But if that person lives in the next city over of a war torn country and in order to see that person, you had to sneak out of your nice, safe, secure, comfortable house at night where you could be perfectly comfortable and overcome fear, trepidation, and a strong instinct toward self-preservation.  Then finding that person and kissing that person on the nose and saying, “I love you,” seems a bit more meaningful..

And so it is with these terrible desires.  It is one thing to love someone when it is easy.  It is another to defy these tuggings at your thoughts, the shouting in your ears and choose the good - to love another as best you can.  They may not always understand the battleground through which you pass in order to prove your love, how easy it would be to be sucked in to the hole of self interest but that you fight your way through to your love’s door in sometimes heroic battles because that person is worth it, deserves love, and is far more valuable than any earthly desire.  That too can seem more meaningful.

For it is one thing never to be tempted and never sin for love of God, it is quite another to be bitterly tempted and choose not to sin for love of God.