"You say you have a new relationship with God. But do you have a new relationship with sin? Do you now hate the sin you once loved?" No points for guessing who often says that. (Hint: name of an apostle + person who cleans things).
Anyway...
Getting hooked I remember when I was in my final year of med school. I'm not sure what got into me (I think I may have been reading about the health effects of smoking!), but I got so bored of studying that I went to the neighbourhood mama shop and bought a pack of "Gudang Garam" (Indonesian clove cigarettes) and a lighter. I lit it up and sucked (you could say I was a sucker at that point in time) and the incredibly pleasurable rush that went to my head was really something else. Everything seemed brighter and clearer and it was like being elevated to a higher consciousness. It was the first time I had smoked a cigarette. I thought to myself: "Wow, not too bad at all."
I got hooked after that, of course, and over the next few years tried out almost every brand - filtered, unfiltered camels, menthol, cigars, self-rolled tobacco, Indian beedees and even dried banana skins (don't bother with this - nothing happens).
I tried to quit a few times, but always had a pack or two hidden away in a drawer somewhere "just in case" I changed my mind. Of course I always changed my mind.
It was something I was ashamed of, and I cannot count the number of times I had to smile sheepishly when I was smoking in the stairwells of the hospital and a colleague would chance upon me. I recall volunteering as a study subject for a lung function test, and halfway through, my professor asked: "Are you a smoker?" Apparently, the carbon monoxide levels in my blood stream were a dead giveaway.
On the other hand there was a subtle (foolish) pride as well at not being part of the establishment, and "doing my own thing".
At home, I often smoked while sitting perched on the window sill, staring into space and listening to music by artists like Toni Childs, Pink Floyd and Dire Straits. The association is so strong that even now, if I happen to hear Toni Child's "Zimbabwe" or "Where's the ocean", I can feel slightly lightheaded and smell the smell of Indonesian cloves, as though I have just taken a drag on a Gudang Garam.
Waking up One day, I was feeling a little depressed, and had been listening to music and smoking more than usual, when the realization dawned on me that I hated my addiction, and the effect it was having on me. It gave me nausea each time I smoked, and a persistent cough the rest of the time. The "mental lift" each cigarette gave me was only very temporary (and got shorter and shorter each time), and when the "high" faded, the "downer" would come, and I would feel more tired and drained and lousier than ever. Yet the craving to smoke a cigarette would inevitably return a few hours later, and it would be quite irresistible.
I was addicted and I hated it and I could not do anything about it. I really felt helpless against it and could not imagine a day when I would be free from the insatiable craving.
I prayed to God about it - "God, please help me to stop smoking". Oh yes, I was a professing Christian then, and believe me, this was NOT the only problem with my life at that time. I was literally mired in sin, and looking back at that period in my life, I can only marvel at God's amazing grace and patient forbearance.
A day-by-day struggle I remember very clearly reading, around that time, an interview with some famous athlete, who was sharing about his struggle to overcome his cocaine addiction. He said something along the lines of the fact that overcoming an addiction is a day-to-day thing. You only live for TODAY to make sure you get through it without falling back into addiction. Then you deal with tomorrow when it comes. You don't tell yourself you're NEVER going to do it again, because then you would rationalize to yourself that "this last time won't make a difference," and you would succumb to temptation. "This last time" makes all the difference in the world, because it will never be the last time. I have found this advice so useful, and so true in my own life, that I still use it nowadays to counsel those people who seriously want to quit smoking.
He set me free And so slowly, very slowly, after that day of realization - that I simply hated the effects of the cigarettes on me - I found myself smoking less and less. I struggled from day to day, and there were relapses, of course, but the intervals between each round of smoking got longer and longer, until one day I looked back and realized that I had gone for more than a year without smoking. That was more than ten years ago.
God, in His mercy, had also provided a best friend (she is now my very loving wife!) to help me. She was extremely supportive of me, yet firm and disapproving of my habit, expressing her very strong disappointment each time I slipped.
Spiritual parallels The things that happen in my life often serve as allegories to teach me spiritual truths.
Sin is extremely attractive and pleasurable. Let's not deny that. We are all born addicted to sin.
But sin is also deceitful. The pleasures are short-lived and fleeting, and often leave a bitter after-taste. As Bono puts it:
"Sweet the sin, bitter the taste in my mouth."
And the end-point of sin is death.
The turning point in our lives comes when God changes our hearts and opens our eyes, so that we come to hate what we once loved, and realize how hateful that is to which we have become bound.
But this is not the end of the matter. It only marks the beginning of a lifelong struggle, which is carried out day by day, in constant dependence upon God. Even today, the temptation to smoke still comes back occasionally, but the strength of the temptation is much weaker than it was at the outset of my struggle. So it is with our struggle against sin. As God grants us victory and we, through the Spirit, mortify the deeds of the flesh, we will live.
In some ways it gets easier, not because we get stronger, but because we are quicker to run to God each time to repent and to ask for help. Yet we should continue to "watch and pray, lest we enter into temptation" and "Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall."
Let me assure you that I still continue to struggle daily with many sins, but there is a peace and joy that comes from knowing that it is He who is working in me, and that He who began a good work in me will bring it to completion.
When we struggle, it must be no-holds barred, a battle to the death. And our flesh must die. We must not "harbour iniquity in our hearts" (like the way I stashed some cigarettes away) for otherwise the Lord will not hear us.
There is also a role for fellowship, support, encouragement and accountability to fellow Christians, as we struggle against sin together. Let us provoke one another to love and good works, and sharpen each other, as iron sharpens iron.
"I... HATE... SIN!"My cell group was once studying Romans 7, and I found myself sharing (with surprisingly great vehemence and tears in my eyes), how much I hate sin and the power it seems to have over me, and the great struggles I have had against it. I did not realize until that day how much I have come to hate sin.
For that which I do, I know not. For what I desire, that I do not do; but what I hate, that I do. - Rom 7:15
I KNOW, through bitter experience and my many failures, that there is no way I could have any possible victory over it without the help of God. And yet, among the sweetest gifts God has given me has been victory over certain sins, so that I know it is only by His grace and power that I have overcome these sins, and all glory goes to Him.
And one of the sweetest promises of heaven, apart from the presence of God Himself, is the assurance that there, my struggle will cease and I will be given, in full measure, a satisfaction of the desire which God Himself has put in my heart - to be sinless and pure before Him.
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