Yield Not to Temptation (that means "don't buy the cigarettes")

So in my quest to be permanently quit of smoking (yes, I know it's bad, that's why I'm quitting, thank you for your concern), there is one simple rule that has actually worked pretty well for me as far as helping me quit. So if you're trying to quit, too, here's the biggest thing that has worked for me:

QUIT BUYING CIGARETTES.

I hate to admit it, but that one took me a while.

Now, it's important that you know that I am not yet permanently quit. I'm way, way, way slowed down on smoking, but that doesn't count for stop signs, so why would it count for cigarettes? But I am actually doing pretty great on just not buying cigarettes anymore. Not a perfect record... But a lot better.

I'll go ahead and be perfectly honest with you. At my absolute smoking-est, I was at roughly a pack a day. Some days were more, some days were less. There are people out there - possibly some of you reading - who may be shocked by that figure, thinking, "My goodness, that's a lot of cigarettes in a day." There are also people out there - maybe another one of you reading - who can remember their days of "casual" smoking before stepping into the nicotine big leagues at 2+ packs a day.

I definitely know what it is to be addicted to smoking. It's not a mystery to me. Every serious smoker that I've ever talked to about it has had the same revelation at some point: I'm not doing this because I actually want to anymore... It's because I have to.

And let me tell you - that was just a straight up unpleasant realization.

And I want you to know that because I want you to understand something: I had a part of my own free will taken away from me by an action that I had fallen into farther than I wanted to be, but it was still entirely my own choice.

When I got to the point where I realized, "Oh, man, I am not even smoking this because I wanted it, I am smoking it just to smoke..." That was rough. But what eventually crept into my head is that I could actually stop that.

I understand the nature of addiction. I also understand the nature of "Oh, no, I'm not addicted, I can quit whenever I want, I just don't want to quit." But more than that, I understand that wanting to quit means something entirely different from actually trying to quit.

I wanted to quit for a long time - even as I had cigarette after cigarette dangling from my lips. The desire was there, but the decision itself was a long while coming. Once I actually made the decision was when things actually started improving. And again, I haven't been completely smoke-free since I decided "OK, I'm quitting", but I've been doing pretty well - or at least, a lot better than I had been doing.

And I say that to say that I would really like to see a similar understanding come out in people's lives in relation to sin.

Everybody knows that their own sin is bad. It's not like I was surprised when I started getting that rattly smoker's cough. I knew what I was doing to myself. I knew what I was getting into. I knew it was stupid, but I did it anyway because... reasons? I don't know. Whatever. Doesn't matter. Point is... Most folks generally understand that they do things that they shouldn't, and that they do those things more than just every once in a while. There are some sins that people hang on to with the force of a bad habit, quite possibly even to the point of an addiction. (I mean, if sin wasn't at least some fun, how would temptation even be tempting?)

But what I've seen - like, a lot - is that while people generally understand that their sin is bad and that they really should cut it out, often times there's not actually a whole lot of impetus to exorcise the problem.

When you find yourself in a dark room, stumbling over pets lying underfoot, stubbing your toes on furniture, and generally causing enough racket that surely everybody else in the house is awake by now, doesn't it make sense to at least turn on the light? With just a little bit of effort - the minimal effort it takes to make a light switch go "click" - you can avoid a whole lot of problems.

Why can't people recognize that about sin?

If you know you're sinning, if you know you're doing something you shouldn't be doing... how about you stop that?

If you can't drink without losing your self-control, how about you don't drink?

If you can't go on a date without having sex, how about you don't go on dates?

If you know that you have a specific weakness to a specific sin that comes up in a specific situation, maybe - and I know this idea is just nuts, but hear me out - just MAYBE it would help to avoid that situation altogether.

If your right eye causes you to sin, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell.

- Matthew 5:29-30

Jesus is using a pretty hyperbolic example here to get a point across, but I think we've started missing the point altogether. We looked at the hyperbole and said, "Man, that Jesus sure knows how to turn a phrase," and then we went right on sinning with our right eyes, right hands, the entire right side of our bodies, and I'm sure that occasionally the left got involved as well.

What if we started taking Jesus seriously? Not literally, but seriously. What if we actually got rid of the things in our lives that lead us into sin? What if we actually tried to move towards holiness? What if we actually tried to quit instead of just wanting to quit?

I get it. I know the excuses. "It's not that easy, you don't understand..."

Hey, remember that thing earlier about how I said I was addicted to smoking?

ADD. ICT. ED. Chemical dependency. That means that my body actually developed not only a tolerance for nicotine, but a need for it in order for me to function "correctly." There's a ton of material out there saying that nicotine is on par with heroin when it comes to how addictive they both are. I wouldn't know that for sure, as I've never tried heroin, but I can for sure say that quitting smoking is not any fun.

So what, again, don't I understand?

That it's hard to deny my desires, especially when those desires are so hard-wired into me that my body is actually getting mad at me for saying no?

Or that there are so many situations where it's so hard to not give in, especially since that's exactly what I've grown so accustomed to doing every time I could?

Folks... I get it. Believe me. I know that quitting is hard. And not just quitting smoking. Frankly, if I had to choose between quitting smoking forever and quitting pornography forever, I would honestly take the pornography option. Lung cancer be damned - at least I wouldn't be.

Do I still mess up? Do I still have a cigarette every once in a while? Yeah. Do I still have several cigarettes every once in a while? Unfortunately, yeah. Is it still an incredible temptation every time I'm standing in a gas station to just break down and grab a pack? Ooooooooooooh, yeah.

But it's getting better. Once I made the step to avoid the one thing that I was doing that meant I definitely WOULD be smoking (buying cigarettes), I managed to cut down on a whole lot of my opportunities to smoke.

I understand that it's a drastic move for us to completely expunge someone or something from our lives that we've become so accustomed to that we think it's just a part of the way we're meant to live, but God is actively asking each one of us to give it up and focus on Him.

So what's it worth to you? Do you want to quit? Do you want to quit enough that you're willing to do something about it?

Or are you just going to sit there coughing?