Complacency: a feeling of quiet pleasure or security, often while unaware of some potential danger, defect, or the like; self-satisfaction or smug satisfaction with an existing situation or condition. (From dictionary.com.)

I know your works: I know that you are neither hot nor cold.  I wish that you were hot or cold.  So because you are lukewarm, neither hot nor cold,I will spit you out of my mouth.  For you say, ‘I am rich and affluent and have no need of anything,’ and do not realize that you are wretched, pitiable, poor, blind, and naked.  (Revelation 3:15-17)

In high school, I had the great opportunity to work at a pet store in St. Albert, Paradise Pet Center.  Initially, I spent a lot of time cleaning aquariums; and later I was trusted more and more with serving customers.  Over the three years (and a few Christmases after I had moved away) I worked there, I learned two important “life lessons.”  The first of these was the incredible value of customer service.  As a locally owned business, our store competed with larger retailers who could consistently offer better prices… so we needed to add value to the products we sold.  We did so by making every extra effort to keep the store clean and well organized, to say hello to every customer who walked in the door, and to carry every large bag of dog food out the door for every customer.  The other lesson was the need to work hard.  We needed to work hard at customer service and at the duties we were responsible; but we were also expected to put a great deal of effort in becoming more knowledgeable and competent employees.  In short, he didn’t just want us to do a job, he wanted to see us get better at it.  The people who lasted as employees at this store were those who grew as employees; those who didn’t grow didn’t tend to stick around for long.

There is a lesson here for the spiritual life.  Most people can trace their journey of faith to a particular moment where God stepped in and set them in a new direction, or where they decided to make their parents faith their own.  It’s like being “employed” by God – except He makes us His sons and daughters, and Jesus Himself calls us friends.  And instead of being given a job where someone checks on our work and pays us, Jesus invites us to move beyond this initial commitment or choice and to become holier (better) people.  The problem is, many of us stagnate at the initial decision.  We rationalize that we aren’t as bad as we used to be, or as someone is now… we avoid the difficult parts of Christian living and settle where we are.  This is complacency… and it would likely have gotten me fired from the pet store.  Jesus’ words above are a stern warning as to the way He views complacency.  “I will spit you out of my mouth.” 

Complacency is dangerous because, as the definition says, we have some ‘sense’ of security- but there is impending danger.  In the spiritual life, there is no standing still – only moving forward or going back.  If we get complacent, we aren’t going to get fired or suspended… but we may find that we have become lukewarm, desensitized, and a lot further from Christ than we want to be. 

Complacency sneaks in when we decide we’re too busy to pray (no such thing), we know enough about God (it’s impossible to completely know the ultimate), or that we’re holy enough (the saints never reached that point.  Pray.  Learn.  Receive the Sacraments- be fed by Jesus in the Mass and called to better living in Confession.  Learn to put others’ needs ahead of your own.  Whatever you do, don’t allow complacency to distract you from the life to which you’ve been called.  Our world is in desperate need of saints: don’t let your complacency cheat you (or those you know) of who God created you to be: better than you (or I) are today.

These newfound resolutions (and the self-discipline it has taken to forego the snacks in the lunch room at work or the semi-regular stops at my local 7-11 or eating lunch from a drive-thru is a simple principle: what I put into my body will either help it or adversely effect it.  It’s also got me thinking about something St. Augustine said:

What you contemplate, you become.

If the things I take into my body have such an obvious effect on me physically then how much more will the things I take into my heart and soul.  Whether it’s music, television, or the company I keep, all of it is either making me a healthier man of God …or a worse one.  One clear example of this is pornography.  While it promises instant gratification, instead it influences the way one sees each and every member of the opposite sex – in addition to creating in onself an unreal idea of what marital union (sex) is supposed to be.  And we wonder why divorce rates are so high?

The things we do, the media we take in, and the company we keep all effect the Christian we are becoming.  If we take in garbage, is it any surprise that we struggle in our spiritual lives?  What are you feeding your soul?

…dear Lord, help me to be even more concerned with what I am feeding my soul than I am with what I am feeding my body.  There may not be an app for this, but confession sure is a good place to start.  Consider the God the doctor and the priest the dietician for your soul.

At first glance, Father is a quiet, unassuming man with an abundance of years of service to the Church in nearly every corner of this diocese – and a love for the game of golf. 

It is, however, once you get to know him that his heroic virtue begins to show.  Father is deeply dedicated to prayer: during the three years I worked for and with him, I regularly saw him with a rosary or brievary in hand whenever he had a spare minute around the office.  He was dedicated to his parishioners, offering daily Mass on Mondays and Saturdays (a rarity given the current shortage of priests- most enjoy and need some downtime on Mondays and Saturday mornings.)  I watched him time and time again drop what he was doing to head to our local hospital to be with the sick and dying.  I watched seminarians clamor to have him as a spiritual director.  My opportunity to serve at this parish was in large part thanks to how much he cared for the youth in our community.

What really stands out about this priest is the demeanor in which he has carried out 55 years of service to Christ and His Church: with humility.  Father would likely protest my singling him out with this blog, stating he had lived an ordinary life of service.  When I last worked with him he was often shy to preach, quickly allowing other clergy he felt were more eloquent than he to preach a homily (even if he already had one prepared.)  What I find ironic is that the homily he shared on a youth retreat remains one of the best I have ever heard on a retreat.  His service has been as memorable and effective as it is because he exudes holiness wherever he goes.  It is easy to see Christ in this man the moment he walks into a room.  He is contented, joyful, prayerful… well, you get the idea. 
I think that it is of people like Him that Jesus was thinking when He said “Whoever humbles himself like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of Heaven.”  (Matthew 18:4). I often pray and ask that God will help me to be humble and holy like this saintly priest. 

A video I was watching on the weekend reminded me that the only thing I have that is truly mine – to which I cannot credit God – is my sin.  All my gifts and talents, my virtue, and any recognition I get for anything I might do: all of it comes from God.  This is, I think, the beginning of a lifelong journey of humility, recognizing not only that God is God and I am not… but learning to live in a quiet, unassuming way like my former pastor who simply served with his yes to God day in and day out.  May you and I have the grace to do and be the same.

At Mass, Fr. Paul talked about the difference between reading the story and entering into it.  In entering into the world of the Lord of the Rings these boys have a unique appreciation of those stories that others who’ve never had this experience do.  The same could be said about people who have played sports and not just watched them, acted in movies or plays, or fought in the heat of battle instead of reading or watching it.

The challenge for us as Christians and the opportunity set before us – is an opportunity to enter into the stories of Christ.  We are given the story of our faith- recounted to us in the scriptures, re-presented to us in the Mass, and professed by us in our Creed.

But it is meant to be so much more than a story.  We are to enter this story- to experience the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ… to encounter Him and to know Him intimately, personally, responding to His invitation to be holy as He is holy.

Thinking of the men and boys I met today, immersing themselves in Middle Earth, it is a reminder to me to immerse myself in Christ: in Scripture, prayer, Sacrament and service.  God daily gives each of us opportunities to enter the story and to live it- that it might be a story lived and not just a story told.

Mike Landry, #3 taking a shot...

I AM THIRD.

If you ever have the privilege of spending some time in a house of the Madonna House Community – like the Marian Center in Edmonton – you may come across a sign hung on the wall which simply says “I am third.“  It comes from a book entitled Sobornost: Experiencing the Unity of Mind, Heart, and Soul written by Catherine Doherty who founded the community.  It’s a simple mission statement – a road map to holiness – where we live our lives with putting God first, our neighbor second, and ourselves in third place.

I mentioned in an earlier post that, as I worked at renovations on my house, God was calling me to some interior renovations.  Prayer, sacrifice, paying attention to what God is doing in my heart as I essentially had the whole month of July off from my regular duties as a youth minister. 

God did not disappoint.  I want to be someone who is not only converted from sin to grace but also one who is converted from good to better (cf St. Bernard of Clairvaux.)   He has given me plenty of opportunities to be with Him, and has spoken to me something I’ve written over and over again (it is, after all, the web address for this blog) – that I belong in third place, and that “I am third” needs to be at the heart of what I do and who I am.

1.  God First

The most loving thing I can do for my wife and kids is to love God with my heart, soul, mind, and strength.  Effective youth ministry comes from a soul that is close to God.  St. Augustine said (and I’ve repeated to countless youth over the past couple of years) “You have made us for yourself, oh Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you.“  Putting God first means that He takes a prominent place in all that I am and do each day.  Prayer is not an option when I feel like it- but is instead as important as breathing, eating, and sleeping.  For me, it means dragging myself out of bed a little earlier in the morning, turning off the radio as I drive in the car to pray a decade of the rosary, and paying attention to the ways in which He speaks to me.  It means Mass, Confession, Adoration… all the things that draw me nearer to Him (and, as a consequence, leaving behind those things that draw me away from Him.)  Practically, if you’re in the Spruce Grove area, you’ll notice that every Thursday my assistant youth minister and I will be taking an hour, 4-5pm every Thursday to pray.  No gimmicks, no programs… just a turning of the heart towards God because we need it, and our families and the youth we serve deserve it.  God comes first, no ifs, ands, or buts.

2.  My Neighbor Second

Matthew 25 recounts Jesus’ description of the last judgment, where the sheep are sent to Heaven and the goats cast into the eternal fire – because the first treated the least of their brothers and sisters with love, and the second did not.  In this passage, Jesus identifies Himself with the poor and needy: but it’s not the first time he does so.  Parable after parable, story after story of His life, not to mention Jesus’ choice of company, and even the manner of his birth and death all demonstrate that He came to save us AND to show us how to live.  No human being is an island- all of us live and work with others.  Some of these are easy to love, and some more difficult… and God calls us to treat each and every one around us with love.

Putting neighbor second meant, tonight, for me to do the dishes after supper when I wanted to take a nap; it may mean giving, sharing, listening, interceding for others, stepping out of our comfort zone because it is what’s needed.  The only reason my renovations ever got finished is because other people considered me their neighbor and gave of themselves to help me where I am seriously inept.

Holy Christians are not selfish people.  They are selfless.  The early Christian community attracted many (even though it was a dangerous choice) because of the way they loved. (cf John 13:35)  As such, we don’t believe in random acts of kindness: there’s nothing random about them.  For us, putting our neighbor second, means we live not random acts, but deliberate acts of love.  This comes in response to a God who loves us with all that He is and all that He has.

3.  I Am Third.

It might be easy to read this and think “Wow, that’s a boring way to live your life.  Praying all the time and running around and doing stuff for other people.  There are so many other things I’d rather be doing.”  Well, my experience of members of the Madonna House community- those who hang the sign “I am third” in their houses – is that they are consistently among the happiest, most and peaceful people I’ve ever met.  If you look at many of the great saints – Francis of Assisi, Padre Pio, Marguerite d’Youville, Maria Goretti, (and on, and on, and on) – this was the way they lived their lives even if they didn’t write it out in such a simple sentence.  The commandments of God, summed up by Jesus were to love God and love your neighbor as yourself.

This is the road map God has given me.  I’ll do my best to live it and share it with you, if I come across you in my travels.  I apologize in advance for the ways in which I’ll fall short- but trust me, if you try and follow this road map God gave Catherine Doherty (and is reminding me) holiness will not be far off.  And that is what I pray for you to be.

An ongoing blog about ways to avoid sexual sin:

1)Whatever

2)Flee

3)Avoid

4) Trust

5) Mercy

6)Fasting

This final tip is the most challenging, but the one of most effective ways to stay sexually pure:

Fast.

Yes, I’m talking about giving something up. Fasting isn’t just for Lent. In the sermon of the mount, Jesus said, “When you fast,” not “if you fast.” (Matthew 6:16) Jesus spent lots of time fasting. Don’t we want to be like Him? Fasting should be a regular part of our spiritual lives.

The Church encourages her faithful to fast every Friday. What she requires in Lent she requests the rest of the year, namely to abstain from eating meat. But there are a lot of other ways to fast. Don’t listen to the radio for a day. Take a day off of drinking soda.

You might be wondering at this point, how will giving up soda for a day help me with sexual temptation?

Here are three reasons why you should fast:

1) The power of no

Jesus told us, “Anyone who is faithful in little things will be faithful in great.” (Luke 16:10)

We live in a culture of instant gratification. We expect to satisfied at all times by everything we see. Web pages must appear instantly. Clerks at stores must serve us completely. What we want, we want to get right now.

It is very rare that we ever say “no” to ourselves. But that’s what fasting does. It’s a bunch of little “no”s that help us with the big “no”s.

Think of your desires like a little child. If a child cries for candy, what should you do? Sure, you could give him candy. But then he will cry again and you’ll be left with the same dilemma. Eventually, you’ve got to teach the child what “no” means or you’ll be left at the whims of the child’s temper.

I think that many of our bodies act like spoiled children. It cries out and we seek to instantly satisfy it. So when we have a lustful desire, we’re more prone to act on it than deny it.

That’s why fasting is so important. It gives us discipline. It puts into practice the ability to say “no” to ourselves on a regular basis. The fast doesn’t have to be a big or dramatic one. Just little things we can do to offer up our desires to God. When we get used to saying no in the small things, we find strength to say no in the big things.

2) The power of God

Jesus also tells us that fasting is a powerful prayer. When the apostles were unable to cast out a demon, Jesus told them, “That kind of demon can only be driven out by prayer and fasting.” (Matthew 17:21)

Do you think there aren’t demons abounding in our world today? Though none of us can blame our sexual sin on satan, claiming “the devil made me do it,” we must “stay sober and alert, because your enemy the devil is on the prowl like a roaring lion, looking for someone to devour.” (1 Peter 4:8) A lion goes after the slow, fat beasts that fall behind from the pack. So don’t be that way!

The Scriptures are full of holy men and women who added fasting to their prayers and accomplished powerful results. Armies were defeated, the dead were raised, and nature itself bent to the will of God in response to those prayers. Can adding fasting to your prayers of purity make such a difference? You bet.

3) The power of repentance

The last reason for fasting is that it is a powerful way of repenting for our sins. It is a small act of penance that doesn’t make up for what we did, but it shows that our heart desires to turn away from sin and come completely back to God.

It is a common theme in Scripture that when the people fell away from God, they fasted. And God heard their prayer. He always brought them back.

But it’s important to keep our focus on the mercy of God. At times, God chastised His people because they fasted but didn’t change their lives. At one point Jesus blasts the Pharisees by telling them, “If you had understood the meaning of the words: Mercy is what pleases me, not sacrifice, you would not have condemned the blameless.” (Matthew 12:7) If we think our fasting is somehow earning our way back into God’s love, we are really mistaken!

Think of it like this: There was one time I got in a fight with my wife. I don’t want to go into the details, but the bottom line is: I was an idiot. Later that night, I apologized. She accepted my apology and we were cool. But I decided to do a small act of love to show her (and myself) that I would change. Without saying anything, I started cleaning the kitchen each night. It wasn’t a big deal, and it certainly didn’t “make up” for what I had said, but it meant a lot to her. And it really brought a deeper sense of reconciliation between us.

Through the grace of God, fasting is a prayer that teaches us discipline, adds power to our prayer, and allows us to more fully repent. What a gift!

So… what are you going to fast from this Friday?

And that’s it for my tips on sexual purity! I hope you’ve been blessed by them. I’ve gotten a few emails from youth ministers wondering if they could print them out and share them with teens, and the answer is a resounding “yes!” Just put “copyright 2010 bob-rice.com” somewhere on it and attribute the authorship to me. God bless!

(Copyright 2010 www.bob-rice.com)

I’ve been on holidays for all of July- and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write blog posts… I’m too busy doing home renovations and playing with my kids to write anything substantial.  So I am borrowing from the best- one of my favorite youth ministers, theology professors, musicians, and bloggers (as well as the 2011 Holy Trinity Parish youth rally speaker, Bob Rice.  You can check out his website at www.bob-rice.com.  This is the fifth of 6 postings he’s shared this summer on sexual purity, originally posted at hhttp://www.bob-rice.com/bob-rice.com/Welcome/Entries/2010/7/21_Mercy.html

An ongoing blog about ways to avoid sexual sin:

1)Whatever

2)Flee

3)Avoid

4) Trust

5) Mercy

For God so loved the world that he sent his only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him might not perish, but have eternal life.

If those words sound familiar it’s because it’s John 3:16, the most popular verse in the Bible. Why is it so popular? Because it captures the Good News, the message of salvation. For God did not send His Son into the world to judge the world, but so that through Him the world might be saved. (John 3:16-17)

Over and over, Scripture tells us of the mercy of God. The letter to Hebrews tells us:

Let us have no fear in approaching the throne of grace to receive mercy and to find grace when we are in need of help. (Hebrews 4:16)

Because as St. John wrote:

If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. (1 John 1:9)

He not only forgives, but He purifies us. As it says in Psalm 103:

As far as the east is from the west, so far does he remove our faults from us.

And speaking through the prophet Isaiah, the Lord tells us:

Though your sins be like scarlet, they shall be white as snow. (Isaiah 1:18)

The Saints of the Church have long reflected on the incredible mercy of God. St. John Vianney said that, “Our sins are nothing but a grain of sand alongside the great mountain of the mercy of God.” And St. Francis de Sales said that anyone who thinks that God can’t forgive all and every sin is guilty of arrogance: “Where is the foolish person who would think it in his power to commit a sin more than God could forgive?” 

The catechism tells us that:

There is no one, however wicked and guilty, who may not confidently hope for forgiveness, provided his repentance is honest. Christ who died for all men desires that in his Church the gates of forgiveness would always be open to anyone who turns away from sin. (CCC 982)

Are you getting the point?

Christ himself died once and for all for sins, the upright for the sake of the guilty, to lead us to God. (1 Peter 3:18)

There is no sin you can commit that God can’t forgive.

There is no sin you can commit that God doesn’t want to forgive. Because, as St. Augustine said, “God loves each one of us as though there were only one of us to be loved.” He didn’t die on the cross for us because He had to. It was because He wanted us. Because He loves us. And because wants to show us His mercy.

The very name of Jesus in Hebrew, Yeshua, is literally translated as “I Save”. It’s what He does. It’s what He wants to do. It’s what we need to let Him do in our lives when we fall into sin.

For all the tips and tricks you might hear about how to avoid sin, sexual or otherwise, at times you are still going to sin. Because you’re a sinner. And I’m a sinner. And God knows this… and He still loves us.

When we confess our sins and accept His grace, it purifies us and makes us stronger for the next battle. The devil would like to hit us with a one-two punch. The first is to lead us into sin, and the second (and more deadly) is to despair of His mercy.

For God so loved the world… For God so loves you, that He sent His only Son, so that through Him you won’t perish, but have eternal life. That’s a promise. If we confess our sins, He is faithful and just. And we shall be white as snow.

Next blog: The final tip!

(Copyright 2010 www.bob-rice.com)

I’ve been on holidays for all of July- and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write blog posts… I’m too busy doing home renovations and playing with my kids to write anything substantial.  So I am borrowing from the best- one of my favorite youth ministers, theology professors, musicians, and bloggers (as well as the 2011 Holy Trinity Parish youth rally speaker, Bob Rice.  You can check out his website at www.bob-rice.com.  This is the fourth of 6 postings he’s shared this summer on sexual purity, originally posted at http://www.bob-rice.com/bob-rice.com/Welcome/Entries/2010/7/19_Trust.html

An ongoing blog about ways to avoid sexual sin:

1)Whatever

2)Flee

3)Avoid

4) Trust

Here’s my favorite verse when it comes to dealing with temptation, sexual or otherwise. It’s worth memorizing:

“No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. But God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. And when you are tempted, he will give you a way to stand up under it.” (1 Corinthians 10:13)

Let me break that verse down into three parts:

No temptation has seized you except what is common to man. The battle you are fighting is not so unique that you can claim you are alone in your struggles. Dealing with sexual sin is one of the most common experiences of the human condition. All the saints have faced it. Even before the Internet was created, people were dealing with sexual sin. So be comforted that you’re not alone in your struggle, and that many have overcome this trial by the grace of God. You can, too.

God is faithful. He will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. Listen again to those words of Sacred Scripture: God will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. He allows us to be tempted because he respects our free will, and if we are honest with ourselves we realize that we sin because we want to. Or at least a part of us does. But God will not allow temptation to overwhelm us. We always have a choice. Just as He respects our free will, He makes the devil respect it as well.

This promise assumes a few things. First, that we’ve been prudent, and haven’t thrown ourselves into a sinful situation. Second, that we’re not dealing with an addiction, which by its very definition means we can’t control our actions. But even in those dire situations, God is mighty to save. He can shine a light in the darkest places. And He can help us overcome our addictions, though the path to do so might be long and difficult.

And when you are tempted, He will give you a way to stand up under it. When we cry out, “God, help me!” He always throws us a lifeline. I can’t tell you the amount of times I’ve struggled with sexual sin and my phone would ring, or someone would be at my door, or my computer would crash. If we find ourselves falling into sin, look for a way out. God will provide one. You can trust in that promise. You can trust in Him to save you.

(Copyright 2010 www.bob-rice.com)

I’ve been on holidays for all of July- and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write blog posts… I’m too busy doing home renovations and playing with my kids to write anything substantial.  So I am borrowing from the best- one of my favorite youth ministers, theology professors, musicians, and bloggers (as well as the 2011 Holy Trinity Parish youth rally speaker, Bob Rice.  You can check out his website at www.bob-rice.com.  This is the third of 6 postings he’s shared this summer on sexual purity, originally posted at http://www.bob-rice.com/bob-rice.com/Welcome/Entries/2010/7/17_Avoid.html

An ongoing blog series with tips on how to avoid sexual sins…

1)Whatever

2)Flee!

3) Avoid

A common phrase the saints have told us is that if we want to avoid sin, we must avoid the beginnings of sin.

The best place to stop a ball from rolling down a hill is at the top of the hill. So the most effective way to fight sexual temptation is to stop it before it starts, and avoid situations that would encourage it.

The virtue that helps us in this is called prudence. Yes, that’s where you get the phrase, “don’t be a prude” from. What people are telling you when they use that phrase is that you should be more open to sin in your life. Nice, isn’t it?

Though our culture mocks those who are prudent, Scripture has a very different attitude toward them:

“The fool believes any message, but the prudent man looks where he is going.” (Proverbs 14:15)

The world would like to blindfold you, spin you around three times, then push you off a cliff. To be prudent is to be wise. It is to be virtuous. A prudent person wouldn’t end up alone in a bedroom with someone of the opposite sex, even if it was just “to talk”. A prudent person wouldn’t become drunk and by doing so lose control of their ability to say no, or their ability to fight off someone who won’t listen to that no. A prudent person avoids the beginnings of sin.

Here’s an example, at least for guys: The Sports Illustrated Swimsuit edition. It’s not Playboy. It’s not even Maxim. It’s Sports Illustrated! But once a year it is filled with beautiful women who are almost naked. The imprudent person (i.e. fool) would say to himself, “Well, it’s not like they are naked, so it’s okay.” He might even be a foolish to justify it by saying something like, “Well, God created the body beautiful so it’s okay if I look at it.” Yeah, right. There’s a huge difference between noticing that a person is beautiful and staring at a sexually provocative model.

Here’s something we all need to understand: sin is never satisfied. It always wants more. Looking at the image of a virtually naked woman leads a man to look a picture of a completely naked woman, and then a video of a naked woman with a… you get the idea. It’s the same when we date someone. It starts small. Some strong sexual innuendo in a text message or conversations on a phone. An embrace where the hands move a little too freely. Like rolling a ball down a hill, our sins gain momentum until it’s too late to stop and the next thing we know is we crash against the ground.

How can we stop such rapid descent? At the beginning.

Be smart. Be prudent. Don’t play with this, it’s not worth it. The stakes are too high. And the gift that God is offering is too great to not take it seriously.

Next blog: Trust

(Copyright 2010 www.bob-rice.com)

I’ve been on holidays for all of July- and haven’t had a lot of time to sit down and write blog posts… I’m too busy doing home renovations and playing with my kids to write anything substantial.  So I am borrowing from the best- one of my favorite youth ministers, theology professors, musicians, and bloggers (as well as the 2011 Holy Trinity Parish youth rally speaker, Bob Rice.  You can check out his website at www.bob-rice.com.  This is the second of 6 postings he’s shared this summer on sexual purity, originally posted at http://www.bob-rice.com/bob-rice.com/Welcome/Entries/2010/7/15_Running_Away.html

Last blog, I began a list of tips to help with sexual purity. They are:

 1)Whatever

 2) Flee

When St. Paul talked about sexual immorality, he gave one simple piece of advice:

Run away.

Check this out:

Flee from sexual immorality. All other sins a person commits are outside the body, but the sexually immoral person sins against his own body. (1 Corinthians 6:18)

Running away might sound cowardly to some, but it’s pretty stupid to fight you know you can’t win.

The sexual act is something that is both natural and supernatural. It involves our bodies and our souls. Sexual temptation is also both natural and supernatural. So it makes sense that we will need to face this temptation using natural and supernatural means.

The supernatural means is through prayer, being open to the grace God is pouring out upon us to free us from sin and keep us from impurity. But that supernatural grace compels us to natural actions. What’s a natural action? Literally, it means I get up and walk away.

If you’re in a situation with your boyfriend or girlfriend and things are starting to get out of control, get up and walk away. I’m not kidding. The only other option is sin. Don’t just lie on the couch together. Get up and go for a walk around the block. If you’re sitting at your computer and are tempted to look at pornography, turn off the computer, get up and walk away. I mean, it’s really difficult to look at pornography on your computer when you computer is turned off and you are in another room.

You have to ask God for the strength to do this. In those moments, it can feel like everything in you will fight against such a simple action as standing up and walking away. But don’t forget that God is in you, too. And like St. Paul said, we can do all things through Christ who gives us strength.

Next Blog: Avoid!

(Copyright 2010 www.bob-rice.com)