Let Go, My Soul

11  “But my people did not listen to my voice;

Israel would not submit to me.

12  So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts,

to follow their own counsels.

Psalm 81:11-12

The tagline for this blog is “musings from a stubborn but grateful heart.”  The gratefulness is mostly because the Lord has not (yet) given me over to my painfully stubborn heart.  It’s a huge fear of mine, actually.  I pray almost daily against it.  I’m not sure if I fully realize how terrifying it would be if the Lord did give me over to my desires, but I know enough to know I don’t want it.  A few biblical examples that serve as a pretty good warning:

• The above verses in Psalms reference the Lord telling the Israelites not to bow down to any other god.  But ohhhhh, they did.  They didn’t just bow down to other existing gods, they created a whole damn golden cow to worship.  They wouldn’t listen and obey, so he gave them over to their stubborn hearts and left them in the wilderness.  Not a single one of them saw the promised land.

 

• Later on, in 1 Samuel, we see the Israelites turning from God as their king and begging him for a (human) king, despite the fact that he had been their perfect and faithful king for hundreds of generations.  So he gave them what they wanted in Saul, and that didn’t turn out so well. (Side note: this is a great little blurb on God using Israel’s sin to bring about his ultimate redemption plan, lest you think it caught him off guard or ruined his plans)

 

• Perhaps the scariest and most detailed warning against persistent disobedience is in Romans 1 –

28 And since they did not see fit to acknowledge God, God gave them up to a debased mind to do what ought not to be done. 29 They were filled with all manner of unrighteousness, evil, covetousness, malice. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, maliciousness. They are gossips, 30 slanderers, haters of God, insolent, haughty, boastful, inventors of evil, disobedient to parents, 31 foolish, faithless, heartless, ruthless. 32 Though they know God’s righteous decree that those who practice such things deserve to die, they not only do them but give approval to those who practice them.

Romans 1:28-32

Yeah, no thank you.

I’m learning to really hate my sin more and more, and to pray against it.  Because the scripture is clear about what happens when I indulge it and refuse to listen and obey the Lord.

I’ll wrap up with a quote from a really good article I read recently.  It articulated this point more clearly than I’d ever heard before.  Speaking about indwelling sin –

Now that it is in the house, don’t buy it a collar and a leash and give it a sweet name. Don’t “admit” sin as a harmless (but un-housebroken) pet. Instead, confess it as an evil offense and put it out! Even if you love it! You can’t domesticate sin by welcoming it into your home.