Have you ever done anything that you promised you never would do? Maybe you have been anti-whatever for years before you found yourself using or doing that very thing you spoke out against. Maybe things that never appealed to you started to look enticing. We could be talking about something as small as eating onions, as big as becoming an alcoholic, and everything in between.
If I were to be completely honest, I do this quite a bit. I come down with this foot in mouth disease when I say I will never do something and then end up doing that very thing. Here are some examples from my life…
TEXTING – I was anti-texting for a long time. My philosophy was if you wanted to talk to me, then call me. Text messaging was glorified emailing and I was not interested. I am immersed in the teenage world of texting, but I stayed strong for many years. However, I caved. Now I text just as much (if not more) as I call. My communication with the teenagers I minister to has gone up at least 300% since I started texting. I am now a texter.
LONG DISTANCE RUNNING – After I crossed the finish line at my first 26.2 mile marathon, the first words that came out of my mouth were, “I am never doing this again!” After I crossed the finish line at my second 26.2 mile marathon, I said, “This time I am for real. I am never doing this again!” I have since learned my lesson. After I crossed the finish line at my third 26.2 mile marathon this past February, I decided to keep my mouth shut and not retire a third time.
DRINKING COFFEE – For 26 years of my life I was not a coffee drinker. In fact, I was anti-coffee. For some reason I associated drinking coffee with being old and adulthood. Well, I am officially an adult. I now drink one cup of coffee a day.
FACEBOOK – I first got a myspace account because all my students in my ministry had myspace accounts. One social network website was enough for me. I did not have time for another social network. However, my wife and my little sister kept telling me how incredible facebook was and that is way better than myspace. I finally caved and now I am on facebook way more than I am on myspace.
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If you are like me, then you probably struggle with this problem too.
Doing things that you promised you would never do is something we are faced with daily. Now this is not that big of a deal when are talking about text messaging, long distance running, drinking coffee, or using facebook. However, we could be talking about things that lead to spiritual death – emotionally shutting down to your spouse, stop being committed to your church family, running back to that addiction that had such a strong hold of you in the past, cheating on that test to get the grade that mom and dad expect, etc.
The Bible even talks about this in Romans 7…
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. (7:15-19)
Paul later writes in Romans 7…
What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? (7:24)
Here is the good news…
The answer, thank God, is that Jesus Christ can and does. He acted to set things right in this life of contradictions where I want to serve God with all my heart and mind, but am pulled by the influence of sin to do something totally different. (7:25)
Live in the truth and freedom of Jesus today!
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All that being said…
I am going on record and saying that I will not EVER use twitter. 
Good message. I said I would never change a poopy diaper. But after 5 days, I am elbow deep in baby poo. But on a serious note, this was a good message for the day.
Amen! This is a good one, B. (The last time I said never…. I got Kennedy!)
Sean – congrats on the new kid-o.
Bryana – your comment reminded me of Jesus’ words in Matthew 18:6, “But if anyone causes one of these little ones who believe in me to sin, it would be better for him to have a large millstone hung around his neck and to he drowned in the depths of the sea.” Jesus takes children’s purity and innocence seriously.
[...] sentence was taken from my blog post on April 8, 2009. I am now suffering from a bad case of foot in mouth [...]
[...] saying that I will not EVER use twitter. :)” That sentence was taken from my blog post on April 8, 2009. I put this post on the Top 10 list because I like to poke fun of myself and I am suffering from a [...]