Instincts

I was running and something caught my eye up the road. On the right side, about 300 yards away, there was a car making a left-hand turn onto the street, so that it was coming towards me. Instinctively my eyes looked to the left, to see if anything was coming from that direction.

On the one hand, checking the left was a bit silly. For the past five years I've run that stretch of road twice a week, sometimes more. And I drive it a couple times a month. The nearest place for a car coming from the left is at a cross street, the very the same place where the car that first caught my attention was seen. My field-of view easily took in both sides of the intersection, and there was only a car on the right. And yet I turned my whole head a bit to check the left.

On the other hand, even though I was running on the shoulder, a place that is consistently safe, or at least as safe as a pedestrian can be around moving cars and trucks, unpredictable things can happen. When I run it is good to have a general awareness of what is going on from moment-to-moment, should one of those ordinary moments turn into an emergency. Visually checking for potential hazards has become so routine for me that it seems like a natural instinct.

As my run continued I began thinking about sin, and in particular why it seems I so seldom respond to its nearness, or even its very presence, with the same kind of self-protective instincts I have when I run. When asked about the importance of God's commandments,  Jesus said:

“The most important is, ‘Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.’ The second is this: ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ There is no other commandment greater than these.”

That statement covers a lot of ground. As I think about the kinds of things that occupy my thoughts, and words, and deeds I see the boundaries being crossed and begin to make excuses for myself. Jesus' statement is grounded in the Ten Commandments, which in God's wisdom are a bit more specific in showing what it means to love God and what it means to love our neighbor.

The Bible doesn’t teach anything about being completely free from sin while living on this side of heaven, but it does speak in many places about how God's people are to live in the world. And so a running moment has opened my eyes to the need to grow stronger spiritual instincts for those times when temptation will arise. And the two go-to places for that are prayer and God's word.

May God hone my spiritual instincts, and yours too, as we spend time with him in prayer and his word. Amen.

Scripture quotations are from The Holy Bible, English Standard Version® (ESV®), copyright © 2001 by Crossway, a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. Used by permission. All rights reserved.