It can be a Slow Process:

At church, we have been going through the book of Genesis.  I will be completely honest to say that this was not a desire of mine.  I am not always the biggest fan of the book of Genesis as far as Bible Studies go.  Because of going through this book so many times, I believed I understood all that I could from the book of Genesis that I needed to.  Boy was this wrong!  I have had a lot of insight and connections to my own life that I have been able to make recently as we have been going through Genesis at church.   I never would have imagined that there is so much of Genesis that can connect to my life today.  

We were reading through Genesis 13, where Lot and Abram separate.  This was after Abram, (who will eventually be Abraham) had learned a lot of life lessons.  He learned that lying is not beneficial.  He learned this when he lied about who his wife was to a king.  He was starting to grow in his faith and dependence on God from this experience.   When Lot and Abram choose to separate because of their personal prosperities and starting to quarrel, Abram gave Lot the first choice of the land.  This would be incredibly selfless, while we see Lot has no problem becoming selfish in this decision. This can be found in Genesis 13:10-12, 

“Lot looked around and saw that the whole plain of the Jordan toward Zoar was well watered, like the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt. (This was before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah.) So Lot chose for himself the whole plain of the Jordan and set out toward the east. The two men parted company: Abram lived in the land of Canaan, while Lot lived among the cities of the plain and pitched his tents near Sodom.”

The story of Lot will take downward slides after this point.  The text even directly states that Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed by the Lord.  The people would start to fall so far away from the Lord and become so wicked, that there was no other option but to destroy these cities.  Why would Lot want to go to this area?  Well, we see that first, Lot looks towards Jordan and that would hold the town of Sodom.   As Lot looks this way, all he sees are the good things, he doesn’t see any of the bad.   Then as we see in the text next, Lot pitched his tent outside of Sodom.  He didn’t fully go inside the city, but he was very close and nearby.  Then lastly, what I do not have in this text particularly, Lot will eventually move into Sodom.  Later on in the book of Genesis, Abraham will have to pray to God in order to save Lot from becoming one of the people who would be destroyed and taken off the face of the earth.  

The speaker at my church, Scott, connected this to our life with sin.  We often don’t wake up one day and start an addiction or start a sin that keeps coming up.  It is a lot of decisions that ultimately wind up leaving us in the place where we don’t want to be.   We may just start out looking at a potential sin, but then that turns into entertaining the idea of sinning, and then finally we are knee deep in sins and choices that we would never have made in the months previously.  It is those little, day by day decisions that leave us in the position of destruction.  Originally Lot would not have thought about moving into a city that he knew was so wicked.  He just saw the good things of the area.  It was tempting.  Slowly he became entrenched in the city and all of its destruction.  He was in the city, completely.  Maybe, he was not as wicked as others in the city, we do not get that description, but he was fully surrounded by the sin and the wickedness.   

This reminds me also of the song, “Slow Fade,” by Casting Crowns.   Some of the lyrics are, “It’s a slow fade when you give yourself away.  It’s a slow fade when black and white turn to gray.  And thoughts invade, choices made.  A price will be paid when you give yourself away.  People never crumble in a day.”   This is so true.  There are a few small choices that are made and then that keeps people enclosed in a particular sin.  People do not crumble in a day.  It may seem that way on the outside, but really there is a slow fade that starts to tear people apart, day by day, small choice by small choice.  

I think I am personally struggling with this in the way I am struggling with my anger.  I have had a rough year when it comes to teaching.   There have been a few problem behaviors that I have not had in the years prior, and this has led me to have a great deal of discouragement.  I don’t want to be filled with bitterness.  I don’t want to be filled with discouragement and anger at others around me.   Because I have been hurt, have felt rejection, and have been personally feeling as though whatever I do is wrong, I have started to let that anger build and build and build.  This is not healthy, and I know there needs to be something that changes inside of me.  Because of this, I have started to talk with others about my struggle with anger.    I know that I need to stop the constant chain of bad thoughts that keep the anger from popping up again and again.  I have been working on becoming more and more transparent with the people who are in my life as well as my therapist about my downward slide into anger.  They have been encouraging and helpful as I seek to fight this slow fade into bitterness.  

I know this is a hard topic of discussion, but I do believe it is an honest one that we all need to have with ourselves.  Is there a sin or a desire that we are entertaining more than we have in the past?  Is there something that is becoming more and more tempting, even when we know we should look away from it?  Is there a slow fade happening in our hearts that we need to start reflecting upon?  I would recommend taking some time to process this in prayer.  The Lord will reveal the struggles that you feel in your heart.  You don’t have to be afraid of our mighty counselor we have in God.  He will be there for you.