Sept 3rd, 2020: Different Forms of Spiritual Adultery
My sister and I talked about her conversation with our father over the weekend. He basically told her that it is time and he is ready. My sister mentioned to me that he seemed to be tired but alert. He was aware of what he was saying to her. It was one of those moments in life that has made me think more about life and death.
I can sit and write about life and death for a long time. We are facing our real struggle by not knowing what tomorrow will bring. We can have hope and plan, but we cannot be sure that we are going to be around for them. We can fight one another over whatever we think we should have only to discover that it can be so meaningless when we face death. Covid-19, in some ways, has forced us to consider many questions we would rather not.
Why are we doing that? In the book of James, the writer gives us some insight into that struggle. His message is we have become adulterous. We have decided to go against God by establishing friendships with the world. Adultery is a big topic, so I will attempt to address only a few aspects of it in this note.
Being proud is a form of adultery. Pride can create many illusions about oneself. It works on the premise that we can be in total control of our human destiny. My parents knew what it meant when everything they had in their life together had to be left behind when they escaped Vietnam in 1975. They had no control over what happened next as they began their new life in Canada. That might be why my father was quite indifferent toward the wealth they accumulated in Canada. They worked hard but towards being financially independent but chose to have a simple life.
Resisting what is evil is another way to fight off adultery. We are not fighting against the evil from the outside. We are fighting against the one from within ourselves. Our thoughts and our hearts are not pure. We are often finding ourselves wandering away from God. We discover that we are double-minded and have split personalities. Life is supposed to be a gift, but now it becomes a burden. We fail to rejoice over simple things of life because we are preoccupied with our dreams of the bigger things of life. Life suddenly becomes a race and not a commitment to a journey with God.
Don't boast about tomorrow. It is God's will that we have tomorrow. Tomorrow remains a mystery in human understanding of our feeble existence. We cannot talk about it as a certainty. We can only hope about tomorrow if we take the time to discover who God is in our lives today. Tomorrow is not something we can demand but receive with thankfulness.
When my father told my sister that it is time, I believe that he is sure about his life more than worrying about his death. He understands that this very present moment belongs to God, and he is willing to submit to that. So our hope for tomorrow depends on our submission to God today.
James 4: 7-10
"Submit yourselves, then, to God. Resist the devil, and he will flee from you. Come near to God, and he will come near to you. Wash your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. Grieve, mourn, and wail. Change your laughter to mourning and your joy to gloom. Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up."
