The Seven

LUST

When our kids were young, they loved candy; lots and lots of candy. Every year at Halloween they would come home with pillow cases full of stuff that would make dentists cringe. For weeks after, we would try to regulate their sugar intake. But one year, we had an idea. We told the kids that they could eat as much candy as they wanted (no restrictions) for 24 hours, but at the end of 24 hours we would throw whatever was left in the trash. They were overjoyed! For an entire day, they were free to stuff their mouths with every gummy worm, every Reece’s, every Whopper and Skittle and Kit Kat — and we would not stop them. They ate themselves sick, literally. When we dumped their remaining candy in the trash the next day, there wasn’t a single protest. In fact, it was weeks before they could even think of candy without turning green. It was fantastic.

They had become overcome by lust — an insatiable desire for candy. But after that lust had consumed  and harmed them, they were sickened by the very thing that seemed so desirable. Again, it’s worth emphasizing that it’s not a problem to have desire. To desire is to be human, to be alive. If we aren’t in touch with our desires, that reveals an entirely different problem. However, desire becomes a sickness when it owns us, when it become the thing we believe we must have if we are to be fulfilled. Lust is the distortion (and ultimately the squashing) of the good desires God wants us to enjoy.

Scripture tells us there is a system at work in the world constantly scheming and conniving to replace God. This false system worms its way into our hearts through a variety of seductions. “For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world” (1 John 2:16) NLT. The lust of the flesh tempts us through runaway cravings for food, sex, and every sort of physical pleasure. The lust of the eyes tempts us through our unhinged desires to gorge all we can on the pursuit for prestige, power, and reputation. With either, however, lust only destroys.

The great tragedy of indulging in lust is the way it hinders us from enjoying real pleasure, from actually receiving God’s true joys. Lust blocks us from receiving true pleasure, because it turns us away from the God who provides it. Further, lust can cut us off from even the capacity to experience these pleasures God longs to give us. Lust, in its selfish quest to conquer others and grab more for ourselves, makes it impossible to be present to the actual moment we’re in, to what’s actually happening in our soul, to the real person in our life, to the goodness surrounding us. Lust severs the sacrificial, loving responsibilities we have toward one another. Lust cannot fuel love; it destroys love.
Like a cancer, lust eats away at good sensual pleasures — healthy pleasures like enjoying fine food and the soul intimacy of sex. Lust feeds off the lie that we must have that experience, that person, that relationship, that sensation — and we must have it now, or we will forever be unfulfilled. But with that grasping, everything we touch gets devoured and ruined.

When we are in lust’s fever, we’re like a lost wanderer crawling across the scorched desert: all we can think about is getting to water. But the “water” lust promises is always a mirage. Lust stokes the lie that God is not really the source of true pleasure. Lust promises that whatever we crave will fulfill us, but it never does. Only God has that power.

Question: How, in your experience, does lust squelch true pleasure rather than fulfill it?

Practice:     Friendship.     Whether we are attempting to selfishly use others for physical pleasure or to build our power or reputation, the self-giving act of friendship counters this impulse. This week, focus on connecting deeply with a friend, without asking what you might get in return.