Oh look, there is a skunk!! I wonder if it smells?

There is a word that I have been trying to think of all morning and I can't figure it out but blogging about it anyways.

As I was driving Cade to school this morning, there was a dead skunk in the road.  Why even though you know the skunk is going to smell bad, the first thing you do is sniff and say, "Wow, that skunk smelled bad?"  DUH!!  Of course it smelled bad.  Our first instinct should have been to not smell.

The same goes for when someone else smells a skunk.  Your friend will say, "Oh yuck, skunk smell."  What do you do?  Smell the skunk of course.  It is crazy that we do these things.  We know the skunk is going to smell.  We know this and still when we see a skunk or someone else smells a skunk, we sniff too.  Crazy.

But really, we do things all the time that we know are bad for us.  We do things to harm ourselves daily, possibly even hourly.  Caffeine is one of the most abused legal substances in the world.  It is not good for us.  We know this.  What do I have next to me right this minute?  My third cup of coffee.  I should not eat carbs.  I should only eat carbs that have an extremely high glycemic index.  My body does not know what to do with carbohydrates.  What did I have for breakfast?  Bread.

Throughout life we do things that we know are bad.  We know that we should do things like workout, eat right, drink lots of water but we don't.  We know that we should stay away from things like candy, drugs, alcohol but still many of us get tempted to harm ourselves even further.

Hmmm... temptation.  Now, we know we should not be tempted.  We pray in the Lord's prayer, "Lead us not into temptation and deliver us from evil."  We pray it, we say it, we sometimes even mean it.  And still, we do things that harm us.  We know what is right and wrong.  We know this and still we get lead into the dark side.

Romans 7:14-25

We know that the law is spiritual; but I am unspiritual, sold as a slave to sin.  I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do.  And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature.  For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out.  For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it.
So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me.  For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members.  What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?  Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord!
      So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.

It is funny that this is even covered in the Bible.  But of course!!  Of course, it is free will.  Most habits are learned habits.  So why do we do them?  I know the things I shouldn't do, but still I give in to temptation.  I struggle daily with these temptations.  


I know why I give in to temptations.  I am weak.  We all are.  Everyday I ask for strength and help to overcome the things I should not do.

Those things I can overcome, but I still will never understand why I see a skunk and immediately sniff to see if it really smells.

:)