Immediate vs Delayed Pleasure

Lately a theme has been resounding in my head. God showed it to me this week, my preacher spoke of it last night, and I read about it in the Bible this morning. It is the concept of immediate vs delayed pleasure, or, put another way, obeying the flesh vs obeying the Spirit.

For a long while now (sadly, a long while translates to a few years), I have been torn by my own version of this struggle. My flesh shouts, "Yes, gimme now!!!" And the quiet voice of the Spirit whispers, "Get away, you know you can't handle it." More often than not the flesh wins, and afterwards, I am wracked with guilt and shame. I mentally, and sometimes verbally, abuse myself with harsh words of condemnation. "You're pathetic! You're of no use to God! What does He want with a loser like you!" Words I would never let someone else say to me but somehow are stikingly true when I say them.

But this struggle I, and so many of you, endure is because we don't want to wait for the delayed pleasure that would come from not giving into these immediate pleasures the world offers. How often do we take shortcuts or get ourselves drunk on the thrills of today so we can be "fulfilled" now?

How did we get so focused on NOW NOW NOW! Is it because we are so self-centered? Is it because we have a hole in a hearts that we are trying to fill with anything, everything? Is it because pop culture tells us we have to have a perfect body, a boyfriend or girlfriend, lots of sex, the best car, the best clothes, and the best house to have true fulfillment and happiness?! Is it because of this emphasis on HAPPINESS rather than on HOLINESS, a word I'm sure is not even in the vocabulary of a very large proportion of the world's population?!!!

All I have ever gotten from submitting to my flesh is addiction, heartache, guilt, shame, self-condemnation, depression, pain, lied to, weight gain, a gulf between me and my God, a gulf between me and my family, money lost, isolation, and an even bigger hole in my heart. A horrid little list, isn't it?

So why do we keep doing this to ourselves? Why can't we see past today to eternity? Well, if you are not a Christian, you don't really have a choice; you are a slave to your sin. The only way you can be rescued is by admitting your need for a Savior and by giving your live to Christ. But us Christians, what is our excuse? It's simple: we have gotten our eyes off of God and onto ourselves. We have literally told God to shut up.

Let's turn back to our Father, our one true Love. Let's get some people to hold us accountable (I did!). And let's see if it won't kill us to wait, to trust, to practice some self-control, to say no to our old life-stealing habits. Let's see if God's delayed blessings won't be way better than any temporary high.