Over the last few weeks, I’ve been building a fence around the perimeter of our backyard. With the help of many friends, we’re now almost done with the project. Yes!
In an effort to make the fence as straight and uniform as possible, we’re using several different types of leveling devices – a corner level, carpentry level, and masonry string with a bubble level. In particular, the string and attached level provide the benchmark so that each post is at the same height. However, once the masonry line is carefully leveled and strung tight, it’s quite important to not disturb it; otherwise we’d no longer have an accurate guide for the fence.
We have a large yard of lush green grass, trees, and open space to play. But can you guess where our young children want to be?
Yep. Right on the line.
I instructed them, “Stay away from the line. Don’t touch the masonry string, kids. Don’t lean on the line.”
But where do they seem magnetically drawn? You guessed it. Directly to the line. Every time they go outside they want to touch the line, run dangerously close to the line, and wander on the other side of the line.
Argh.
So the debacle continues:
“But that bright pink string with the funny green bubble thing is soooo interesting, Papa!”
You can imagine my frustration.
But then I realized, this is just how you and I are with the lines and loving rubrics set in place by God. All-too-often, we simply want to touch, watch, taste, or do simply because we wonder why God says not to. We are practically animalistic about what has recently been coined as #FOMO – the fear of missing out.
We wonder…
“Am I missing the fun and pleasure I need by not touching that line?”
“Did God really say this would be bad for me?”
“Does God know best about what brings me happiness or does He just not understand me?”
“Can I touch that line or cross off that guide-point from God’s Word and suffer no consequences?”
All-the-while, God is observing our childish yet dangerous behavior with sadness and dismay. If we’d only realize He is not looking to unleash a thunderstorm on our lives, but longs for us to experience the sunshine of authentic joy! Yet we want to touch that line simply because we’re told not to. Gadz!
God’s rules aren’t for our detriment but for our good. His design for life is holistically according to the beautiful, satisfying pattern He’s made for “life-to-the-full” – abundant life in relationship with our Creator (see John 10:10).
Yet just like my young children, our sin-propensity pulls us to and over the line all the time. So let us hear from the heart of God:
“But My people have changed their glory for that which does not profit. ‘Be appalled, O heavens, at this, and shudder, be very desolate,’ declares the LORD. For My people have committed two evils:
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters, to hew for themselves cisterns, broken cisterns that can hold no water.” (Jeremiah 2:11b-13)
Don’t turn from God and make attempts at replacing God! Empty, stone basins only hold death. You and I have been down into those empty, waterless, lifeless cisterns time after time after time.
Stop in your tracks.
Remember you’ve tasted grace…a life worth more than this.
Cheap, broken God-replacements don’t work and cannot satisfy. So slay lust before it is consummated. Don’t allow nascent sin-thoughts to conceive and give birth to death in your soul.
The apostle James writes of the tell-tale signs that mark this pathway of the death-life:
“But each one is tempted when he is carried away and enticed by his own lust. Then when lust has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and when sin is accomplished, it brings forth death. Do not be deceived, my beloved brethren.” (James 1:14-16)
But how can we stop, turn, and run free from the nagging temptation? By refusing the lie of the lust-line and, in turn, believing in the Source and Treasure-Hold of true goodness and life: God.
James’ quill was guided by the Holy Spirit to point us squarely in this direction immediately after discussing the lie of lust:
“Every good thing given and every perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shifting shadow.” (James 1:17)
We fight against the pull of the line by treasuring true goodness. So, today, oh children of God’s family: live in the expansive, sweet, green lawn of God’s grace by believing and delighting in God Himself and the good gifts He has given.
Don’t bother with touching the line.
In God’s Vineyard,
My friend, Dave Radford, of The Gray Havens, wrote an exquisitely powerful song that captures the message of how we must turn and run from the downward, deathward pull of lust. Watch his award-winning music video entitled SIRENS:
