What makes a person cheat on their spouse? What makes an abuser abuse? What makes a thief steal? What makes a liar lie? When any of these actions are sanctioned, justified, or silently accepted by those around us, we create a culture that is hard to change. Culture is contagious and can affect a nation and the world. Usually something drastic has to occur to cause us to change entrenched behavior. A few day ago, I spoke to a man suffering from COPD who said that his doctor told him that if he wanted to live he had to stop smoking. He kept smoking and at follow-up appointment his doctor asked him if he had stopped smoking. He said, “I lied and said, ‘yes’ but the doctor knew that I was lying and told me so.” He said the doctor then asked him very forcefully whether wanted to live or die. When he returned home he prayed for help, and made a decision to stop smoking that day and has not smoked for three years. He is in a wheelchair and on an oxygen tank, but he said that he thanks God everyday to be alive. Change is difficult, but not impossible. If bad habits and addictions have us on a collision course with death, as we appear to be worldwide, we can discipline ourselves, ask God for help, and change our course.
The comedian Flip Wilson popularized the phrase, “The devil made me do it,” as a catchall excuse for any bad behavior. Most of the poor decisions in my life were made, not because the devil made me do it but because I listened to the devil and gave in. Just like giving in is a decision made by small repeated compromises, we change poor and destructive behavior by the discipline of saying no to the temptation to give in. It has been said that an idle mind is the devil’s workshop, but I am learning that with a disciplined mind, and help from God, we can successfully drive the devil out. If we can fill the idle mind and our time with constructive productivity, we can take back our minds and our world. We can certainly see that our world needs some help right now.
When we discipline ourselves for success, the devil can no longer ‘make us do it’ and with the help of God we can drive the devil out.