It's Time to be a Coward

It’s Time to be a Coward

I’ve grown up with a rough family.  Yes, there was love and nourishment, but if you were hurt, emotionally or physically, you learned to suck it up.  If not, my big brother would, “really give you something to cry about”.  Tears immediately found it’s way back inside my eyes, and all because a rollie pollie, A.K.A: my best friend for three minutes, was just ruthlessly killed by my big brother’s feet during a very intense capture-the-flag game.  Now, I’m no longer bitter about the rollie pollie.  I have made new friends since then. (Butterflies- they don’t crawl). But growing up with a family of rough and intense personalities, we were constantly trying to push ourselves to see who was the bravest.  For example, “Okay, here are the rules: you have to ride your bike as fast as you can without looking for cars or wearing a helmet, and I’m going to pedal after you at full speed and try to purposefully and dangerously hit your tire with my tire.  Meanwhile you’re going to be praying the tire doesn’t have too much friction to flip you over your handlebars.  Then, if you can still see and remember your name, you're it!”.  We played games like that pretty much my entire life.  But as I grow up, I have to remind myself, they are just that- games.  Being brave and trying to see how far you can push yourself is exhilarating and can impress all the kids on the block.  But God wants a coward, at least when it comes to temptation.  A lot of times we try to impress ourselves or others with our strength.  We want to see how far we can go without crashing.  In context to temptation, God wants us to leave it alone.  The Bible never says we won’t be tempted or we will never reach a moment when we have to make a decision against sin.  However, it does give us encouragement, instructions, and hope in those situations.  Second Timothy says to flee from temptation (NIV).  In other translations the Bible instructs to, “run from”, “stay away”, “turn away”, “shun”, or “avoid”, “turn your back”.  Being a huge language fanatic, I noticed in all translations, the verse begins with an understood “you”.  This automatically emphasizes it’s a command.  The Bible isn’t suggesting, “You should maybe probably could possibly run from temptation”.  No, it’s saying: Run. Run from it. Flee from it.  Stay away from it.  Shun it.  See at this moment, God doesn’t want one of His children to see how far they can go without crashing. He knows the power of temptation, and unlike us, He actually knows our hearts (Jeremiah 17:9).  So don’t dance around temptation, or try to push through it, don’t even entertain the thoughts of temptation.  Don’t give power to something that has none.  Just Run.  With that said, we all fall.  We have and we will. We have all fallen short.  However, guilt is not from Christ. If Christ is all good and beneficial, how can He create guilt?  Guilt is from the evil one.  It holds you back.  It holds me back.  It says, “Chloe, you’ve messed up here. BIG TIME.  How could you do that?  What happened to ‘running and fleeing’?  You failed.  You might as well not try to fix it.  You know you’re just going to mess up again.”  That’s guilt.  How is that Godly?  How is being stuck and not trying to make it right any part of goodness?  It’s not.  There is a difference between guilt and conviction.  Conviction is from God.  Conviction says, “Chloe, that was not good.  That will not bring you anything in life but pain and disappointment.  Turn your ways.  Do better.  Make it right, and move on to a better life He has in store for you.”  Conviction is hope.  Guilt is quicksand.  Guilt will trap you for a life time, if you let it.  Conviction produces light for a better future, if you let it. Sometimes, we all step on rollie pollies or flip over our handlebars.  Try to prevent the next injury by running away from the first sign of temptation.  And, if you do flip again, turn to the Living Word.  Let conviction bring hope.