Let His fire burn bright in your heart

Tim Galligan's sermons are always good, but this is one that has stayed with me. When he talked about running away from sin, it really spoke to me and I want to talk a little bit more on the topic. For those of you who did not attend The Fire, the chapter we looked at was Genesis chapter 39. The story goes a little something like this:

Joseph's brothers sold him into slavery and he was taken to Egypt. In Egypt, he was bought be a man named Potiphar. Potiphar was one of the pharaoh's top officials. While he lived with Potiphar, Joseph prospered and Potiphar granted him more and more power over his household. One day, Potiphar's wife notices how handsome Joseph is and asks him to come to bed with her and he says ‘no’. Every day, Potiphar's wife tries to get him to come to bed with her until one day, she sends all the servants away. When he comes in, she grabs him by the cloak. Joseph quickly slips out of his cloak and runs away. However, Potiphar's wife is cunning and she tells everyone that Joseph tried to take advantage of her and Joseph gets sent to prison. In prison, Joseph gains favor with the warden and is put in charge of the other inmates.

Tim talked about the whole passage, but I just want to focus on one part, the part where he talked about Joseph running away from Potiphar's wife. If you read the actual passage, after Potiphar’s wife tries to get Joseph into bed with her, Joseph talks about why he tells her ‘no’. He doesn’t tell her ‘no’ just because it would displease his master and not just because it would be a sin, but because it would be a sin against God. I think that too often, we minimize and personalize our sins. We go to confession, yes to get our sins absolved, but mostly to make ourselves feel better. One of the things we forget about our sins is that they’re not personal. When we sin, our sin affects not only ourselves, but also those who are around us. However, even in the times that we realize how our sins affect others, we forget that our sins are against God as well. God is our friend and confidante and we often forget that. We forget to calculate him into the equation when we sin. We’re not just accountable for our actions to ourselves and others, but we are also accountable to God. When you hurt or betray a friend, you will most likely ask them for their forgiveness and you are truly penitent for your actions. Why don’t you pay God the same respects? He is supposed to be your friend, too. The next time you go to confession, don’t confess your sins to the priest as just simply being absolved of your sins. The priest is God’s advocate, so speak to him like he is actually God and ask God for forgiveness the same way you would ask a friend for forgiveness.

In order to not sin against God, Joseph ran away. He could have given into temptation like so many of us do, but instead he chose to simply run away. Before temptation could come to him in his moment of weakness, Joseph used his moment of strength to get away from the temptation. So, when you’re tempted to sin, in that moment of strength before you cave in to your temptations, get away or find something else to do. Read a book, call a friend, drive over to the mall or a local park. Look for that moment of strength every day and feed the moments of strength instead of caving into the moments of weakness.