Higher Affections

   So the other day, I was thinking about what it means to live in shame. I was reflecting upon my past, and the experiences I put myself through. For eight years of my life, I lived in shame. I was in bondage to pornography addiction. Every day that I decided to indulge in my selfish, fleshly, and short-term desires, I left feeling even more guilty and shameful. And after years of doing this, I began to feel hopeless guilt and shame. I was not only living in shame, I was beginning to live in fear. The weight of my own sin, that I kept indulging in - though I wanted to stop - was extremely heavy to carry. As a result I began to rationalize what I was doing. If I couldn't avoid the shame by stopping the actions, I was going to avoid the shame by redefining the moral impact of those actions: "it's not that bad," "every guys goes through this at least once in his life," "I was born with these desires," "come on, she is basically asking me to undress her in my mind, so it's not all my fault," so on and so forth, blah blah blah. If I couldn't stop the sin, I was going to make it seem not that bad so that I could handle the mental and emotional consequences of my addiction. In short, I wasn't running as much from sin as I was from shame. Distance from guilt was far more important to me than closeness to God.
   And I wonder how much that is true in our lives in general. Maybe yours isn't a sin of lust, but of something else; you keep committing the sin (or omitting the good - James 4:17) over and over again. And to you the righteous guilt is heavier than the relational gap. I John 2:15 says, "Do not love the world nor the things in the world. If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him." But so often we set our affections on worldly things, like feeling alright or appearing to be good.
   But can I ask some honest questions?
   Do we run from sin or just from shame?
   Is it the distance from God that we hate or just the guilt?
   Do we desire holiness or simply a conscience that doesn't bite us?
   Are we in love with God or simply feeling good?
   In The Weight of Glory and Other Addresses, C.S. Lewis said, "It would seem that our Lord finds our desires not too strong, but too weak. We are half-hearted creatures, fooling around with sex and drink and ambition when infinite joy is offered us, like an ignorant child who wants to go on making mud pies in a slum because he cannot imagine what is meant by the offer of a holiday at the sea. We are far too easily pleased."
   This week I challenge you, SET YOUR AFFECTIONS HIGHER!!!