Wednesday, February 1, 2023

“What I don’t understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise … But I need something more! I can will it, but I can’t do it. I decide to do good, but I don’t really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don’t result in good actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.” (Romans 7: 14 – 21, The Message Bible)

                In our Soble clan, it is called “doing a Dad” or “doing a Dale.” It is a family curse.

                It usually (and all too often) goes like this. I go into a grocery store and want to buy, for example, potato chips -  regular, everyday potato chips. I get to the shelf where the potato chips are featured and grab a bag. But when I get home, I discover that I have inadvertently grabbed a bag of jalapeno flavoured potato chips. Or I grab chicken nuggets and bring home spicy chicken nuggets. That happened to me just this past weekend. Poor Susan has a cupboard full of bottles of conditioner when I meant  to buy her shampoo. I blame the manufacturers for poor labeling. Who’s got the time to read and study the labels?

                Sadly, it runs in the family for some. Recently, Katie reached for a package of regular coffee and came home with decaffeinated. She did a Dad. I am ratting her out because she blames me for this sin. Even our little, five-year-old grandson, Declan, chose jalapeno fish crackers instead of the regular. His astute father pointed out that Declan can’t read yet, but I fear the worse.

                On the bigger stage of life,  Paul wrote about deciding one way and then doing the opposite.  His humanness knows the right and the good but seems to slip into doing the wrong and sinful. “I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise.”  Even when he is very intentional  “not to do bad,” he messes up and goes right ahead and does the bad thing anyway.

Too often, we act without thinking, do something regardless of the consequences, say something without much if any discernment and before you know it, it’s jalapeno time.

We should know better. You might think that our past experiences would teach us not to make the same mistakes. But we do it anyway a lot of the time. It is as if we can’t help ourselves. Paul wrote that it is sin working in us that deceives us into making the wrong choices. He is right, of course, but this is not some extraneous power to blame, but the “sin that dwells within me.” We might want to say that the Devil made me do it, but in reality, we have no one to blame but ourselves. “Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.”

But we are not left in this quagmire of good and bad actions. “Is there no one who can do anything for me? Isn’t that the real question? The 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.” (Romans 7: 24 -25, The Message)

Jesus sets the standard of good conduct. He is the example of love, grace, mercy and forgiveness which we are called to imitate. He has taught us how to live a meaningful and fruitful life. It is Jesus who commands us go out in the world in his name and do the things he did, “The person who trusts me will not only do what I’m doing but even greater things, because I, on my way to the Father, am giving you the same work to do that I’ve been doing.” (John 14: 12, The Message)

With Jesus’ Spirit alive within us, all of us can make better choices, do the right thing, say the loving thing, be the kind of person who overcomes the wrong and the hurtful.

 “So here’s what I want you to do, God helping you: Take your everyday, ordinary life—your sleeping, eating, going-to-work, and walking-around life—and place it before God as an offering. Embracing what God does for you is the best thing you can do for him. Don’t become so well-adjusted to your culture that you fit into it without even thinking. Instead, fix your attention on God. You’ll be changed from the inside out. Readily recognize what he wants from you, and quickly respond to it. Unlike the culture around you, always dragging you down to its level of immaturity, God brings the best out of you, develops well-formed maturity in you.” (Romans 12: 1 -2, The Message)

Do a Jesus!

 Dale