It's okay I felt His Spirit say. After what I had just done, it
seemed incomprehensible that His message to me would be one of
consolation. I had just done the unthinkable, after all. In a single
moment I made the very mistake I had unknowingly been planning to make
all along. The waves of forbidden desire finally emerged from my mind's
shadow and came crashing into the shoreline of my moral compass, or as
Freud would call it, my superego. The gratification and pleasure I
derived from it all slowly faded into a black hole of guilt and shame,
despair and confusion. How could I have let this happen? I
silently and anxiously questioned as I fought back the tears that tried
to fall. I was horrified to have come face to face with the sinfulness
and depth of evil in my own heart. You see, we rarely just make a bad
decision or engage in a particular mistake on the spur of the moment.
Before there's action, there was thought. Contemplation. Consideration.
We entertained the idea of the sin before we acted out the crime.
You didn't just kill that person. A thought occurred before the trigger
was pulled. Even in the most instantaneous and reflexive self-defense
response, the thought preceded the pulled trigger. You didn't just fall
into bed with the attractive co-worker. You first thought it through
and imagined what it would be like. Your nose didn't just accidentally
snort the line of cocaine. Your mind ingested it before your body ever
did. You simply followed the thought trail that led you to it. The
wisdom in Proverbs 4:23
that says "carefully guard your thoughts because they are the source of
true life" is undeniable for it is in our thoughts that sin is first
conceived. In my own scenario, instead of starving those ruminations, I
fed them daily over a period of months. The next step was, inevitably, a
painful one.
