James 1:13-15

     So I've been reading through James as of late along with doing the One-to-one reading plan from YouVersion.  Yesterday I was hit hard by James 1:5-8 so I've been getting a lot of self eval out of the text.  Often it's been a mirror held up to my face and I don't know that I care for what I see.  Too often, as James 1:15 points out, I start the path down to destruction.  Everything is bread from an emotion.  If it were a simple logic question then we would all be thin, debt free, individuals.  But it's the emotion of "I deserve this" or "I want" that puts us in debt when we know our expenses out weigh our income.  

     But it's my heart that wants to look too long or purchase too quickly.  When I don't stop and listen to my Heavenly Father that gives His strength to resist that I fall.  And then the spiral into chaos begins.  Desire is not a problem, but allowing desire to consume you to a point that it gestates . . . that's the problem.  Because, as the text points out, desire gives birth to sin.  Continuing to progress in that sin will eventually bring death.  I often wonder what evils in this world we have brought upon ourselves because we have simply allowed sin to grow up.  Hate allowed to grow could eventually grow to murder, pride in mankind's superiority lead to the sinking of a certain White Star Line ship carrying over 1500 people to their icy graves, together these could turn the pride in one's own culture and the hate of other cultures into Hitler's genocide.  

     The point is then, to recognize the dangers of holding on to desire for too long.  Had David only noticed Bathsheba's beauty then his life would have been much different. (start the story)  But he stood and stared as she bathed in the late afternoon; first was desire.  He inquired and conceived to have her; thus lust and sin came.  His sin would grow from committing adultery to the point of murder at the organizing of Bathsheba's husbands death.  From that point forward David's house was filled with strife.  

    So, Yoda wasn't the first to piece all of this together.  A movie script from the 70's penned "Fear is the path to the dark side, fear leads to anger; anger leads to hate, and hate leads to suffering".  Some 2000 years ago the half-brother of Jesus Christ penned these inspired words of God.  Now we know and have the tools and strength to watch for the warning signs along the way; when the road sign says "Death Ahead" . . . why in the world stay on that road?