How To Ruin Your Life
Written by David W. Hegg | Senior Pastor
Adapted from The Obedience Option by David W. Hegg; Christian Focus, 2010
Note: In the previous chapters of The Obedience Option, I illustrated our sinful passions as being like a giant gorilla and our godly self-control and active mortification of sin as a cage that houses the gorilla. My point is that strengthening the cage also starves the gorilla. But, if you feed the gorilla, you also weaken the cage. Understanding this illustration is foundational to benefiting from the material in this article.
Sometimes, the best way to see the consequences of our sin is to take it out of the darkness and hold it up to the light. Many years ago, I did just that with the Bathsheba event in David's life. The story is found in 2 Samuel 11, but let me turn it upside down and use it to show how you can ruin your life. If you think disobedience to God is the better choice, you may as well do it the way David did.
Of course, what follows is entirely facetious. I am not suggesting that you intentionally order your life toward ruin. I am trying to show you the stark reality involved should you even think about letting yourself enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season. Remember, sin may advertise pleasure, but its ends are the ways of death.
So, with a bit of tongue-in-cheek, here's an excellent strategy for bringing ruin to your life. While the story of David applies particularly to men in the area of sexual temptation, you ladies can use the same strategy to plunge into ruin the areas where temptation stalks you.
You might want to grab a Bible and read through the story in 2 Samuel 11 as we walk through these four steps on How to Ruin Your Life:
Step 1: Convince yourself that living an undisciplined life poses no risk.
That is what David did. When the armies and kings of the land were out fighting wars, David stayed home and spent lots of time in bed. His days were his own. The author does not suggest that David had any order to his days, spiritual progress, or life in general. The way the story unfolds suggests just the opposite.
David should have been somewhere else. He wasn't gainfully occupied. He wasn't keeping careful watch over his emotions and desires. He wasn't pursuing righteousness, love, and faith with those who called upon God from a pure heart. And he certainly wasn't running away from opportunities. All this left him vulnerable and weak. And he didn't realize it until it was too late. He had convinced himself that living an undisciplined life posed no real risk. After all, he was the most powerful man in the realm and a man after God's own heart. God said so Himself.
At this point, we see an essential truth: Spiritual position can lead to spiritual laziness. Like David, it is easy for us to think that, having gotten to a particular position or level in our race of faith, we can coast a bit. Maybe we even have enough spiritual fortitude to allow ourselves to taste the pleasures of sin. Perhaps we no longer need to pursue righteousness. We've got a full storehouse, and we can take a break. And maybe that break extends for some time, and we become convinced we're still doing just fine. We've convinced ourselves that living an undisciplined life poses no risk. Great start! Now, we're ready to take the next step in bringing ruin to our lives.
Step 2: Allow yourself to act according to your impulses, rather than your commitments.
David got out of bed one evening and strolled on his rooftop. As the King, he probably had the highest roof and the best view. As he surveyed the city, he saw beautiful Bathsheba bathing on her rooftop. At that point, David stood looking down two roads. His impulse pointed him down the road of lust, adultery, and spiritual death. His commitments would have called him down the road of obedience. They would have, but his lack of spiritual discipline had made those commitments to God and righteousness dull and weak. You know the story. In David's mind, there was no wrestling or struggle to maintain his heart's purity or marital relationship. He let his sexual impulse lead the way.
One of the great benefits of an undisciplined life is that it can round off the edges of our commitments. After all, we certainly don't want to be one of those religious fanatics! We may even rationalize that our rigidity in pursuing righteousness isn't good for us. So, we back away from our disciplined strategy of obedience. And as we do so, we find that the impulses we've worked so hard to keep in check rise to the surface. Of course, we know they're there, and we're vigilant. But over time, they become more robust and more comfortable. We even feed them a bit and find that it feels good. And then it happens. We're doing something when a sinful impulse suddenly barges into our minds. In the past, it would have been held in check by the cage of our faith, but apparently, we left the door open, and we're in trouble. Giving in to the impulse is so much easier than it should be, and we're blind to any negative consequences. Acting according to impulse rather than commitment isn't all that bad, right? After all, it feels so good. And now we're really on our way to ruin.
Step 3: When your sin is about to be found out, pour all your energy into cover-up rather than confession.
After David slept with Bathsheba, she became pregnant. Now David faced a crisis. His sin would be made public unless he took steps to cover it up. The author does not mention whether or not David even considered coming clean before God and his people. Instead, David threw all his efforts into an elaborate plan to hide his sin. You can read the story yourself, and you'll see that in all of the plans, Bathsheba's husband, Uriah, is the one with integrity and genuine commitment to God. God's king has no integrity, while the Hittite soldier has plenty.
This is most seen in the final part of David's plan, which is carefully detailed in a letter written to the army's commanding general. The plan called for the army to desert Uriah, leaving him defenseless in the face of the enemy. Ironically, David asked Uriah to carry the letter. The plan depended on Uriah's integrity not to open the envelope carrying his death sentence. Uriah maintained his integrity, but it cost him his life.
When the gorilla gets out of the cage, chaos and tragedy always result. At first, the damage may be small, almost inconsequential. But eventually, it will be noticeable, and people will start to wonder. We'll have to decide on a course of action: Will we confess or cover up? If you want to ruin your life, you've got to cover up your sin. You've got to deal with the mess and not the gorilla. After all, it's okay. You can get it cleaned up if you work hard, lie quite a bit, and count on the trust you've built in your relationships over time. You're a good person, and folks will understand. That's much easier than strengthening the cage and re-capturing the gorilla.
Step 4: Convince yourself you got away with it ... so you can do it all again.
At the end of 2 Samuel 11, David's cover-up has worked. Uriah is dead. Bathsheba becomes his wife, and a child is born. No one seems to notice; no one seems to care, least of all David. Looks like he got away with all of it. No harm done. I am sure David was relieved. He may have even secretly determined not to do that again. Whatever the case, David believes it's over. He cleaned up the mess and got away with it.
The key to ruining your life is building up a false confidence that the sinful ways you've chosen haven't hurt you. You've lived under God's radar. You've come to believe that your sin has no consequence unless something terrible happens to you. All this allows you to relax even more, feed your impulses, get better and better at cover-up and deceit, and repeat the cycle time after time. As you do this, your ruin will become more apparent until you are left with no good choices and a life full of regret.
You'll notice that God enters the story again at the end of 2 Samuel 11:27. Up to this point, it did look like David was operating behind God's back, beyond His notice. But that wasn't the case. In one devastating sentence, God is back. And His position is made clear: But the thing that David had done was evil in the sight of the Lord.
Always remember that the consequences of sin are real and profound. They may masquerade as inconsequential, but God sees and recognizes evil as evil and will deal with it. When we walk the path of disobedience, we prefer evil and reject good. In this way, we are rejecting God. We are not walking in faith. Our gracious and loving Heavenly Father will use discipline to bring us back into line, and often, the first step in that discipline is to let the consequences of our sin fall on us. Just ask David.
The truth is simple: we can't thumb our noses at God and not experience the consequences. That's why it only makes sense to see obedience as our very best option. As we pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace with those who call upon God from pure hearts, we will come to see the truth more and more. Faith is a life-dominating conviction that all God has for me through obedience is better by far than anything the world or Satan can offer through selfishness and sin.