Dec
29
Written by:
Rev. Ed Boon
12/29/2009 5:18 PM
I have over the years known numerous people who have fallen into temptation. There are many reasons why this happens, but all too often it occurs because we allow ourselves to stay too long in temptations path justifying it with the “no big deal” excuse. The fact of the matter is that often what seems like “no big deal” often is.
HOW FAST CAN YOU RUN?
During the height of the Cold War, a former FBI agent wrote a book about Soviet spies working in Washington, and how the KGB would solicit workers in the FBI and CIA and in the military to work for them. The KGB would never start by approaching an American and asking him or her to steal "top secret" documents. Instead, they would start with something simple, something that was in fact public information, like an office telephone directory. No big deal. It was something the American worker would justify because it was public information. But it would still be a thrill, and it would put some extra spending money in the American’s pocket. It would be enough to hook the American into doing it again. Next time it would be a file. Then it would be something confidential, and then it would be some-thing very secretive. But that would come later. At the beginning, it would be nothing more than a telephone directory. No big deal. And so it is with temptation.
I have over the years known numerous people who have fallen into temptation. There are many reasons why this happens, but all too often it occurs because we allow ourselves to stay too long in temptations path justifying it with the “no big deal” excuse. The fact of the matter is that often what seems like “no big deal” often is. It has often been pointed out that the best example of a person who recognized that he couldn’t stay in temptations way and took off running was Joseph. In the face of a blatant attempt at seduction by Potifer’s wife he took off so fast he left his cloak behind. That must have been some temptation.
There is someone I know from France who still phones me from time to time. He has for years had a problem with alcohol abuse. His biggest problem is that he refuses to admit that he has a problem, insisting that he can handle it. In effect the alcohol is ruining his life because he won’t turn and run.
About three years ago I was hiking the Airline trail from the Appalachia parking lot off Route 3 in New Hampshire. I was heading up Mount Adams with my Airedale Duffy. Duffy as usual was running free and was off ahead of me out of sight. We had been hiking for about an hour when suddenly I heard a strange rustling. Then from around a corner I saw my speedy Airedale running for his life with a moose right behind him. As they approached I started running too, but about the time I started running the moose stopped her chase so we also stopped running. The moose returned back up the hill so we very carefully followed her. In a moment I saw what had caused her to chase us. She had a calf back in the woods. My guess is that Duffy had seen them and started to chase them when the mama moose counter attacked and Duffy very wisely headed the other way. Well it seemed like the perfect photo op so I carefully took out my camera and snapped a picture. Unfortunately, it was early in the morning and the light was not good so the flash which was set on automatic went off. That moose never hesitated, she came charging out of the woods right at me. My big brave Airedale was already sixty yards down the trail as I ran for my life. The shot of adrenalin was incredible. Never in my life have I run so fast. Someone I told the story to later said “You’ve got to watch it, you’re not as fast as you used to be.” My response was that at that moment I was running at Olympic speed. However, the brutal truth was that it didn’t really matter how fast I was going, the moose was too fast for me and gaining rapidly. When I last looked back she was barely six feet behind me, her nose to the ground snorting her warning. I grabbed a tree and swung off the trail and started to zig zag through the woods which was what I had always been told you should do when chased by a moose. Fortunately for me, the moose was a female protecting her calf and not a male in rut and she stopped right where I left the trail and returned to her calf. I learned a couple of lessons with that experience. One is that when dealing with an animal with a young one, with anything bigger than a squirrel, I’ll leave the photography to the professionals and stay as far away as possible. The other lesson which I have often reflected on is that if when in the face of temptation I would run as fast as I did that day with the ‘devil’ snorting down my back, I would never fall prey to the temptation.
In a British radio broadcast back around 1943, reading one of his own essays, C. S. Lewis was discussing some of the basic Christian beliefs. In talking about the personal existence of the devil, Lewis anticipated the scoffing of the so-called enlightened modern thinkers who would relegate the idea of a devil to just a symbol of immorality, or a myth upon which to lay blame for one’s wrong behavior. He said, “I know someone will ask me, ‘Do you really mean, at this time of day, to re-introduce our old friend the devil - hoofs and horns and all’? Well, what the time of day has to do with it I do not know. And I am not particular about the hoofs and horns. But in other respects my answer is ‘Yes, I do’. I do not claim to know anything about his personal appearance. If anybody really wants to know him better I would say to that person, ‘Don’t worry. If you really want to, you will. Whether you’ll like it when you do is another question’.” SOURCE: C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, “What Christians Believe.”
The moral of all this is that we should never underestimate the Devil. He is real and he has the ability to fool us, tempt us and make us fall. There are times when he tries to intimidate us and we must stand up to him. But there are also times when the better part of wisdom is to admit that we absolutely must get out of the way. So I ask you: How fast can you run?