As I experience the ups and downs of the numbers on my scale, I realize that I sometimes approach sin and righteous living the same way I approach my scale. During those periods when I’m paying attention to what I eat and faithfully exercising I’m more than willing to go to the altar of the scale. I love the scale and my ‘fellowship’ with it. I look forward to those early morning meetings when the scale shows me the progress I’ve made. I’m rewarded for my healthy habits. So it is when I am in the Word, dwell on those things that are praiseworthy, and flee from sin, I love to pray and have fellowship with the Lord. I’m rewarded by the peace that comes from God when my sin is confessed, forgiven and turned from.
Then there are those periods when I tell myself that after all, quality of life (aka eating what I want) and enjoying fellowship through food is more important than being a slave to the scale. After all, I don’t want to be a food Pharisee. I avoid the scale. I come to the scale with trepidation or as often happens, I avoid the scale completely. I do not want to be confronted with the results of my indulgence, until, after too many days of snug waistbands I succumb and get on the scale. And then boom, there it is, those caloric transgressions catch up with me and I realize that I just can’t pretend those cookies don’t count if I eat them standing up. My rationalization has failed. The scale does not lie. I wish the same could be said about my conscience.
As with eating, when I allow myself to “splurge” on impure thoughts, imagined revenge, bitterness, criticism or anything that my flesh craves, my craving for more of the same grows. I tell myself that I’m not sinning in any overt way; after all it’s not like binging on blatant sin. I’m just having a scoop of sin. Surely those sins don’t add up to much. Yet my desire to approach God is squelched as I am weighed down by my sin. I no longer desire early morning meetings with Him as my sin has tightened the Spirit’s conviction around my heart and I don’t want to confront the truth just as I don’t want to confront the numbers on the scale. The longer I’m away from fellowship with God the more my sin grows and the tighter the band of bondage. Finally I can no longer stand the conviction of the Holy Spirit or the consequences of my sin. I know that I can no longer rationalize away my sin. My desire to be in right fellowship with God wins and I go back to prayer, confession and repentance. My craving is restored for the food that truly feeds me, the Word of God.
