9.20.11 01:00 Integrity

This may only be a passing fancy, but for now, I could enjoy oatmeal every night, eaten at this time.There's something filling and wholesome about a hot bowl of instant oatmeal. Of course the fact that it is "instant" oatmeal also means you won't feel very full for long. I do appreciate that I am not eating a honey bun though.

For a few weeks before this week, (the week in which I've decided oatmeal is most excellent at 1AM), I've eaten a honey bun either near the beginning of my shift, with coffee; or near the end, also with coffee. If you are going to do honey bun, you'd best do it right-with coffee. Now though, I find my sense of doing the right thing for once has permeated my life. I don't usually do the right thing when nobody's watching. If you put the honey bun directly beside the oatmeal and asked me to choose, I would more than likely choose the honey bun.

How am I supposed to feel, as a Christian, when I can't even make the right choices concerning the simple things in life? An interesting thought about that: Who's the hypocrite? The sensualist who makes no bones about the fact that he will always choose the easier, pleasurable path over a good, yet painful one any day; or the Christian who does everything right in front of everyone, but in private tends to choose the path of pleasure? Do we/I really believe in God? The answer of course is yes. However, our everyday actions should tell us what we believe about God; who we believe he is. Apparently we really don't think he cares that much, because we'd feel like he was watching us  when we chose wrongly. Nor do we seem to consider he is both the God of love/grace and judgement or, yet again, we'd definitely reconsider knowing our judge is always ever-present.

I have found another possibility, and it has little to do with what we actually think about God. Sometimes it is simply a case of fatalistic, why-bother thinking. We just get tired of thinking, questioning, ascertaining, wondering; sometimes we just want to do. We act, strike-out, eat, have sex, and we try not to have any thoughts while doing it. We know about consequences. We know about judgments and the God who will be witness to the whole thing. These things are pushed in the background, and then we start trying God's patience.

We hold a belief somewhere in our sub-conscience that God's mercy/grace will last forever. There also exists, constantly at war with the former, a belief that we're finally going to go too far this time. Gambling with our lives we forget, and do, and regret. A familiar "this will not be the last time" cycle.

So it feels good to notice I have began making a few small "nobody else will know" good choices. I am not just enjoying doing what I know to be right, but also the sweet taste of cinnamon and brown sugar.