#749. Believing in logic.
Long before Napoleon Dynamite made the offspring of lions and tigers popular, I knew all about ligers. An outdoor mall in Myrtle Beach used to have a few huge ones on display outside in case you wanted to look at deadly jungle cats while shopping for braided leather belts.
Behind a small fenced in wooden enclosure were three massive ligers. Easily eight feet long and weighing hundreds of pounds, these beasts were terrifying. Normally, the ligers just laid there, looking like killing machines on pause. But one night, they moved. Having taken our normal watching spots, my brothers and I stood there looking as the biggest liger stood up suddenly. With a burning, Rob Lowe intensity in his eyes, the liger stretched and then walked toward us. I was thinking about using one of my brothers as a “meat shield” if it came to that, but it didn’t.
The liger calmly stood up on its hind legs, towering high above our heads. He stared at something behind us. We turned and in the dark saw a small purse dog walking by with a woman who was shopping. We looked back and that liger looked kind of like people who have walked by the Cinnabon store at the mall. I don’t speak liger but I felt like his eyes were telling me, “I want to eat that dog like the KFC Double Down bunless bacon sandwich.” (This liger had very specific eyes and I’m a little like the Beastmaster.)
I’ll admit, that night wasn’t that dangerous. The truth is that I don’t live that dangerous of a life. I’ve never sky dived, I don’t run with bulls and sometimes I floss. Overall, it’s a pretty danger free life, but every now and then, someone will say something to me that feels dangerous. Something that seems risky and as a guy who spends a lot of his days wrestling with words, sometimes I can’t help but wonder about the dangerous things we all secretly believe.
In response to something I wrote, a friend revealed one of the most dangerous things Christians struggle with.
The post I had written was about porn. It was pretty straight forward and my friend had some good thoughts to share, but one of them revealed something incredibly dangerous that Christians often miss. And I don’t like to think that everything I write is just me having random thoughts. I think it’s good to respond to real issues, real people are talking about. Here is the gist of what was said:
“If Christian men knew what porn does to the women in their life there would be no more Christian men addicted.”
On the surface, that’s not a big deal, but what it really says can be pretty dangerous. Here is the core of that thought:
“If men knew how they hurt people with porn, they logically would choose not to look at porn.”
Or stripped down even further:
“Logic can beat sin.”
I wish that were true. I wish that in the battle of sin vs. logic or sin vs. rational action, sin always lost. That would make life so much easier. When faced with a dilemma, you could just pull out some algorithm and avoid sin altogether. “Should I gossip about my friend? That might get back to her and really hurt her feelings. Logically, I should avoid the drama that would come with that. I won’t gossip.” Or, “Should I cheat on my wife? The minutes of pleasure are certainly not going to be worth the possible years of hurt that causes. The value of cheating is far less than the value of growing my marriage over the long run, I’m not going to cheat.”
But life doesn’t work that way, does it? Men across the planet know their wives will be hurt by alcoholism. Dads around the world know ignoring their kids through workaholism is wounding them. People everywhere know that buying things they can’t afford with money they don’t have isn’t the smartest financial decision in the long run. But we still do it, don’t we?
Why? Because sin is bigger than logic.
I can’t think my way to a pure heart. I can’t logic my way toward sanctification. I can’t will myself to redemption. Sin is bigger and meaner and more powerful than everything in the world except one thing, grace. Only grace can beat sin. Only God’s love and power can defeat it. Porn or gossip or lying or anything else sin entices you with will crush you if you put your trust in your logic.
When we try to beat sin with logic, sin says “That’s adorable.” On the other hand, when we surrender, and admit like Paul that we keep doing the things we don’t want to do, grace has room to step in. And grace can win.
Grace and grace alone.
