Confessions of a nail biter

As many of you know I have been trying to quit biting my fingernails as what I 'gave up' for Lent.  I guess what I gave up would be 'nail biting'.  I have to say, it is actually been going fairly well.  You can see white at the tip of each of my 10 fingernails and I am certain that has never happened before in my adult life.  Still a work in progress though.  
In a prior post I talked about the spiritual aspects of this work - actually wanting to quit and how that relates to our lives in relationship with God, and about not dwelling in our failures so that we can live into what God has for us next.  
I continue to see parallels between this exercise of not biting my nails and our faith journeys.  Let's start with my nail biting.  As I said, I am actually doing a pretty good job of not biting my nails.  But an interesting (and for me unfortunate) thing has happened.  Now that my fingers are not in my mouth any more, I have been eating a lot more.  I noticed it the other day.  I didn't even realize it but I had basically spent the whole afternoon snacking on one thing after another.  
My nail biting had left a hole in my activity - and literally a space in my mouth - and I was filling it with eating food.  Some of my nail biting could certainly be attributed to nervousness (I am nervous person), but a lot of it was simply habit.  I was doing, without thinking, something I was used to doing.
When I stopped doing it - or when I tried to stop doing it - I didn't intentionally put anything in its place.  So, without any conscious thought on the subject, I found that I had replaced my nail biting with eating.  Not good for the waistline.  At.  All.  
But this is where the connection is for our lives of faith.  
It is good and important to stop things that we are doing that aren't life-giving, healthy or in line with God's will for our lives and the world.  But, as we are doing that we have to be aware of the space in our lives and in our hearts that taking away those activities will leave.  
We have to make a decision about what we are going to fill that space with or it will get filled on its own.  And if we aren't intentional about what we fill that space with, it will likely be filled with something just as harmful to us as what it is replacing (from a health standpoint, it would actually be better for me to go back to biting my nails and stop eating so much).  
When we take something out of our lives - especially something that has been there for a long time - the space that is left exposed will be tender and sensitive.  It hasn't seen the light of day in a while.  
We have to be intentional about removing the things (habits, thoughts, attitudes, etc) from our life that don't fit with who God has called us to be.  But we have to be just as intentional about what we put back into the space those things occupied.  
A pastor I know was trying to quit smoking and was having a really difficult time.  Eventually what helped him was finding a prayer that he could memorize and pray.  The prayer took about 2-3 minutes to say all the way through, this was almost exactly as long as it took him to smoke a cigarette and about as long as one of his intense cravings would last.  
If he was able to make it through the whole prayer without lighting a cigarette, he found that he almost always was able to resist the urge.  
He had to fill the space before he could let go of those cigarettes.  
Of course it isn't always as simple as 'insert prayer here', but it provides a model.  I don't know what spaces you need to open in your life (I am busy identifying all of mine!) but I know that starting that process by inviting God into that space and asking the Holy Spirit to fill it is a good start.  
I am a nail biter.  I am trying to stop.  I am asking God to open my eyes to how that space can be filled according to his will.  
More nail related thoughts tomorrow.
God bless.

Still biting

A quick thought for the day.  
I have had a bit of a rough day or so with the whole 'not biting my fingernails' thing.  Not a full relapse mind you, but I have definitely been biting.  Trips to the car dealership and other moments of uncertainty will do it to me every time.
Which is so true, I think of what happens to us in many ways when we are trying to avoid temptation or sin.  We are strong for a while and then there we find ourselves in a difficult time, we are stressed or around certain people and we - seemingly without even thinking about it - slip right back into our old patterns of living and being.  Those patterns that are supposed to be dead so that the new and transformed us can rise with Christ.  
But our lives are not so simple.  It is just the fact of life that there will be steps back (not to mention steps sideways, etc.)  just as we struggle to move forward.  
When we fail or relapse or give in to temptation there is a natural thought to dwell in that failure, to give up and give in saying that it (and we) are a lost cause.  
But our mistakes and even our sin and giving into temptation is not failure, not really.  The only real failure is to accept that as the end result of who we are and where we will be.  
Paul, you know the guy that wrote like half of the New Testament and brought the gospel to countless people, struggled with a 'thorn in the flesh' that he said was from Satan.  Nobody knows what that thorn was, some say it was a physical ailment, some a temptation, some say something else entirely.  But whatever it was, 2 Corinthians 12 says that Paul asked to have it taken from him 3 times and that it wasn't.
So what?  Well, I think for us there is peace and grace in Paul's response to the continued presence of this Thorn.  He didn't look at it as a failure of his or of a reflection of who and what he 'really' was.  Instead he says this, in verse 8: But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”
The point is that our 'failures' and imperfections - even our sins are not to be burdens of guilt and despair for us, but rather reminders that it is not on our own merits that we are granted entrance into the family of God, but rather through the grace, peace, love and ultimately sacrifice of Jesus Christ.  And that power is made perfect - and shines most brightly - in and through our weakness.  
***Disclaimer: this doesn't mean we are to sin more, but that is a post for another day - or just keep reading in 2 Corinthians.  
God Bless.

Choosing what to quit and who to serve

Below is the message I shared at Good Shepherd's new worship experience, 'Shepherd 701'.  The message is actually based on a blog post I wrote last week, about biting my fingernails.  So this post can serve as an update to that post, both in how I am doing with the nail biting and in that it is a more fully formed treatment of the idea of serving either the law of sin or the law of God.  
Hope you find it meaningful. 

Romans 7:17-25 (New International Version, ©2011)

¹⁷ As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. ¹⁸ For I know that good itself does not dwell in me, that is, in my sinful nature.^[a] For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. ¹⁹ For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. ²⁰ Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. ²¹ So I find this law at work: Although I want to do good, evil is right there with me. ²² For in my inner being I delight in God’s law; ²³ but I see another law at work in me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. ²⁴ What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? ²⁵ Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord!   So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature^[b] a slave to the law of sin.

So here we are in this season of Lent. 

It is a fairly common practice to give something up during Lent

Truth be told, I am just not very good at this: I usually pick some type of food to give up.  Then I end up fixating on the food and talking about it  - or more likely complaining about not having it all the time

I feel like this sort of defeats the purpose, so I was actually not going to give up anything this year.

But then I decided to try something a little different

This year I am trying to give up biting my fingernails. 

Which isn’t the typical thing to give up, I know, but I have been trying for literally years to stop, so I thought it was worth a try.

As I struggle with breaking this habit this week I was struck by Paul’s words in Romans 7, words we just heard a moment ago:

‘For I don’t do the good I intend to do, but the evil I do not want to do – this I keep on doing.’

Isn’t this a great summary for much of our lives? 

We, so often get caught up in doing the things that we don’t want to do and manage to miss the opportunities to do the things we want to do or know we should do.

This doesn’t seem to make any sense – why would we keep doing things that we don’t want to do?

Well, for most of us it just isn’t that simple

I want to stop biting my nails – most of the time.  Sometimes I do it without even realizing that I am doing it. 

But, if I am being completely honest, there is often –in fact almost always – a moment of realization

A moment when I know I am about to bite my nails.  And in that moment, I don’t want to quit – I want to bite my nails, so that is exactly what I do. 

It’s in moments like this, usually about things much more important than nail-biting, that we are giving in to the ‘law of sin’ or sinful nature living within us. 

In that moment we are presented with a choice between the freedom of following the law of God and slavery to the law of sin. 

Too often we choice the law of sin. 

We do it of course because there is some reward or satisfaction or pleasure.  Sin usually looks or feels good – at least for a moment.

But sin, choosing the law of sin, has consequences too

Right now this is the first time I can ever remember that at least one of my fingers doesn’t actively hurt. 

That is a ridiculous but true statement. 

The pain in my fingers is a consequence of giving into that momentary impulse. 

But we need to understand that whenever we give into the law of sin in our lives – there is a consequence – that sin leaves a mark.  Aching fingers, hurt feelings, broken and torn lives. 

And the more often we give into any one sin, the deeper the wound, the longer it takes to heal, the bigger the scar in our lives, and relationships.

Sin is about deception, tricking us to choose pain and brokenness and slavery over freedom, wholeness and fulfillment. 

  It may not always seem like it, but we always have a choice: a choice to give into the sinful nature living within us or to accept and rely on the love, grace and power of Jesus Christ and the law of God that is at work within us.  

It’s a choice we make many times every day, and each time we give into sin we allow ourselves to become more enslaved by the very sin we seek pleasure from.  

But, each time we choose to rely on God we grow closer to God and also closer to who we are supposed to be.

So, while we are incapable of always choosing freedom, wholeness and life our will power, strength and choice is not the end of the story

Listen again to the passage from Romans, this time in The Message translation, starting at verse 24:

Romans 7:19-25 (The Message)

²⁴I've tried everything and nothing helps. I'm at the end of my rope. Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn't that the real question?

²⁵The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different.

The choice we are offered is to stop relying on ourselves and to lean on and lean into the love, grace and peace of Jesus Christ. 

Jesus Christ who loves us, wants what is best for us and has the power to guide  and save us. 

Through his actions he has set right even our hearts and minds and decisions if we would but choose him. 

And that is indeed good news.

Amen.