A couple of weeks ago, following my post Don’t Say a Word, we were going to explore some of the S’s in Ssshh.
If you’re following our blog, you’ll recall that Dave had some important information he wanted to share, so today I’ll rewind and begin unpacking some of those ‘S‘ words that rattled around in my brain.
There’s likely plenty more but a few that come to my mind are: Self/ish, Secrets, Seduction, Silence, Shame and yes, I’m going to go there… Sin.
The reason I place them in the Ssshh category is that none of us really enjoy talking about these human characteristics, and we especially like to sidestep, ‘Sin’.
So, let’s eat the frog together, and get this bad boy out of the way.
Modern culture encourages us to—“Do whatever makes you happy”—“If it feels good, do it!” We believe we are masters of our universe and we’re in control of everything. (at least that’s what we, like to tell ourselves)
Oswald Chambers, the Scottish born Evangelist and teacher, had a lot to say about sin. One definition describes sin as being every act of self will or, independence from God. The bible tells us that we all fit into this category and were born with this nature. It also tells us we don’t have to remain in it.
When Dave made his betrayal choices, he only ever thought of himself—thinking, he’ll never get caught—this assumption allowed him to go and eat the proverbial apple. I don’t believe that any man or woman wakes up one day to intentionally go out and have an affair. The path to get to this place begins with a thought, not an action.
But he did get caught, and the pain was unbearable, for both of us, so why would he do it again?
Because…in a nutshell, sin feels good—momentarily.
If it didn’t, we wouldn’t continue doing harmful things to ourselves and others. The bible says that the wages of sin is death; in other words, there is a consequence for every choice we make, it’s an inescapable, universal law.
I’m no theologian, my faith is extremely simple, but I believe that the Garden of Eden was the birthplace of sin.
When God crated Adam and Eve, they didn’t have a care in the world, everything was theirs, all except one tree, the tree of knowledge, of good and evil.
God told Adam not to eat from it because he would die, but he was free to have anything else.
Adam and Eve were naturalists, no need for clothing, they embraced the freedom of nudity, they knew nothing else. The snake came and told Eve she should eat from the tree, convincing her that she wouldn’t die. The snake told her that the only reason God said not to eat the fruit is that if they did then it would open their eyes and they will be like Him. The fruit looked pretty good to Eve—temptation—so she ate it. Then she gave some to Adam who also ate. Once they did, they saw things differently, and all of a sudden were ashamed of their nakedness, so they covered themselves up. They hid when they heard God walking in the garden. God called out to Adam. Adam came out and told God that they were hiding and afraid because they were naked. God said, “Who told you that you were naked? Did you eat some fruit?”
And this is where the blame and shame game originated.
Adam said, “the woman made me do it.” Eve said “It was the serpent’s fault”
Neither one took responsibility for their actions, and guess what my friends, humanity has been doing the same thing ever since! We cover up our wrongdoing, deny our wrong thinking and blame others to take the heat off us.
Here’s another interesting fact about us humans, we take it upon ourselves to judge sin. We love nothing more than comparing ourselves to others. Placing ourselves on some kind of moral high-ground, measuring out what we think is right or wrong, according to our own standards.
One thing I know for sure is that every time I point my finger at someone else, I have three fingers pointing back at me.
So, we do things we know are wrong because we want to. We think it won’t hurt if no one finds out.
Each time we give in to temptation in order to satisfy our fleshly desires, we open a door to push boundaries further. Testing the waters to see what and how much we can get away with, how far can we go without getting caught. Eventually, our pride will come crashing down, it will be payday for sinful thoughts and actions and it will be painful. We might sit in the pain and shame for a while, feel a bit sore and sorry for ourselves, wait for the unpleasant feelings to subside—and repeat.
The cycle continues until we discover a new way of living.
So whether you believe in the concept of sin, karma, reaping and sowing, we will all experience the very real consequences of wrong being.
It’s unavoidable.
Noni x