I love pie. Cherry, apple, pecan, pumpkin… I’m not picky. I don’t think I’ve yet met a pie I couldn’t eat too much of.
My neighbor made me a pie this past week. I don’t remember what she called it, but it was incredible. It was a chocolatey nutty crusty bit of heaven that might have been a touch too rich if she hadn’t also included a pint of Blue Bell vanilla ice cream to go with it. And any pretense of “Fit Life Challenge” self-discipline was gone long before I went back for seconds.
In the movie, The Help, one of the characters – Minnie – is a sassy cook is known to make the best pies in Jackson, MS. But her mouth gets her in trouble with Miss Hillie, her racist snob of an employer, who fires her and then spreads rumors that make it almost impossible for Minnie to get another job. Minnie is not one to go quietly, though, and she comes up with a plan to do a “terrible awful” to Miss Hillie. She bakes a pie for her former boss with a special ingredient: poop. She pretends it’s a peace offering and acts contrite – until Miss Hillie is about halfway into a slice (which Miss Hillie thinks is incredible). Then she shares the recipe. The full recipe. And as tasty as that pie had seemed going down, the recognition of what she’s just eaten – ahem – changes that opinion rather quickly.
This is like sin, isn’t it? It looks pretty tasty on the surface, but inside it’s got that same “special ingredient.” It certainly can’t satisfy or nourish. Even worse, the really sinister part of sin is that if you “eat” enough of it, pretty soon you stop being able to tell the difference between a good pie and the “terrible awful.”
For the most part, we know that, don’t we? And yet still we keep going back to it. In Hosea, Gomer leaves Hosea for lovers who don’t really love her. I don’t imagine it shocks her when they’re gone in the morning. The Prodigal Son left his father for “friends” who were there when he was buying and left him alone in the pigsty when the party ended. Even when we know the goodness of our Jesus, we still go back for another slice of that pie.
Like a dog that returns to his vomit
is a fool who repeats his folly.
(Proverbs 26:11)
Why do we do it? Even when we know the “special ingredient” in sin pie, why do we excuse ourselves when we keep eating it? If sin was really a pie like that, we’d be shocked at anyone who went back for seconds – but we do it all the time! You know the sins I’m talking about – the ones that seem so hard to truly leave behind for good. The ones so easy to justify. “I know it’s awful stuff, that pie, and it’s going to make me sick… but it sure did taste good, didn’t it? And I could really go for something sweet right now.”
And that’s part of our addiction to sin, isn’t it? Life is hard. For most of us, a lot of the time life feels empty or meaningless. Often we’re left hurting, damaged, burned. Alone. Even when we know sin isn’t what we’re looking for, even when we know it’s not going to satisfy, and even when we know it will break our Lord’s heart, we go after it because it’s anesthetic. It numbs. It distracts. It provides a moment of fleeting happiness or joy. But ultimately it’s not real. Caedmon’s Call describes this really well in a song called “Potiphar’s Door:”
So I’m staring’ through the window screen
Wishing I could do all those things I’ve seen
I know it’s sin that leads to death but it looks like fun to me
And fun is the one thing I need
Because this race has knocked the wind all out of me
Gomer, the Prodigal Son… they’re us. God’s love for us is uninterrupted, faithful, steadfast. Ours is fickle, and wavers from moment to moment. We can start off the day in prayer and before noon have ordered up a double helping of that sin pie. What makes sin so easy for us?
Ultimately, the biblical answer is pretty simple. Self-discipline – saying “no” to the pie – is a sure way to fail. We have to replace the pie with something better. God has offered us His hesed – His steadfast love. It’s a love so strong, so consuming that it utterly and completely transforms His beloved. What God wants in return is not self-discipline, not good behavior. He wants our love.
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice,
the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
(Hosea 6:6)
We return to sin because our love for Him is defective. We sin because we don’t love Him enough. We accept the fleeting enjoyment of sin because we don’t trust that what He offers us is truly better and more satisfying than anything else this world has to offer. Faithfulness to God is not a matter of developing an iron will, it’s the result of being completely satisfied in Him, in what He’s done for us… in His love.
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“therefore I will hope in him.”
(Lamentations 3:22-24)
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