How to Win, part 3 - Going to the Right Place

I'd love to visit New Orleans right now. The Cajun food, the way the Saints are playing on both sides of the ball, the warm weather, the alligators... ahhh, the destination of my current dreams.

The last place in the USA I want to go is Chicago. Not even the Jay Cutler-led Bears or the deep dish pizzas are enough to make me want to visit that place. The wind, the weather in general, the ugliness of the city, the corrupt politics - it really is the one place in the entire country I have the least interest in visiting.

In fact, I'm so determined not to visit there that I mapquest Chicago from the address of every place I go, so I don't accidentally start heading there. I have bought roadmaps and highlighted all the routes that might lead to Chicago from where I live. I've contacted the airlines and checked into all the flights that lead to Chicago, just to make sure I don't get on one. Even the railroads and the bus schedules have all been checked and memorized to make sure I don't end up going there, even by accident.

I've got pictures of the skyline, and I've memorized a good portion of the city map, so I never drive those streets. There's a calendar of Chicago scenes hanging on my wall to remind me not to visit Chicago and see those scenes. There are menus from 14 Chicago pizza places in my desk, because I definitely don't want that pizza to lure me into going there and have me end up in those places.

I've got a sports card collection that features the complete Bears team for the last 18 years, the Bulls since Michael Jordan started for them, and the last few years of the White Sox. (Nope, no Cubs stuff... why even think about them, since they're not likely to tempt me to go there?)

I have six scale models of the Sears Tower, and in fact, I buy all of my appliances from Sears to remind me never to visit the Sears Tower. I focus on almost all things Chicago in my obsessive determination not to go there. I don't want to go to Chicago. I want to go to New Orleans.

This is stupid.

If I want to go to New Orleans, why am I thinking about Chicago at all? It's not like Chicago is on any legitimate route to New Orleans from where I live. Why buy maps that lead to a place I don't want to go? Wouldn't a much more effective way not to visit Chicago be to prepare to go to New Orleans? It'd be smarter to get maps and schedules for routes I want to travel than to obsess about avoiding the place I don't want to go. It would be smarter to collect things from the place I long to see than to pull together things that remind me of what I want to avoid.

But this is exactly what most of us do with sin, especially addictions. We say, "I want to live righteously. I don't want to fall into this sin." Well, that's great. It's important to define where you are and where you want to go and to recognize that there are places you never want to return. It's important to know what the real problem is and what was stopping you from beating it. It's the next step where we are so often stupid.

After having determined where we don't want to go, we then spend our time, thoughts, and energy obsessing about where we DON'T want to go. That's ridiculous. If you don't want to go there, but there is someplace you do want to go, focus on the destination you WANT to reach. If you're traveling to New Orleans by any legitimate route from where I live, you will NOT end up in Chicago.

This is Biblical.

Galatians 5:16: "This I say then, Walk in the Spirit, and ye shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh." The way to live holy is not by avoiding sin. The way to avoid sin is by being holy. You don't walk in the Spirit BY not fulfilling the lust of the flesh. You walk in the Spirit so that you DON'T fulfill the lust of the flesh.

Don't focus on the sin you're trying to avoid. In fact, in a sense, don't even try to avoid it. Instead, focus on living for Christ. If you're living for Christ, you will not be sinning. Throw out the maps that lead to sin. Throw out all the souvenirs of it and all the connections to it. Fill the house of your mind instead with the things of God. Plan your journey to the righteousness of Christ, and set foot on that journey, and there is no way you will end up in sin, because they're on completely different routes.

A spiritual battle (which any addiction is) is ultimately fought in the mind. And when you give footholds to the thought of sin, eventually you go back to it. Even if you start off thinking bad things about it, just continuing to think about it eventually corrupts your mind, and you end up back there in it again. (Yeah, I know this from experience.) So don't let yourself dwell on the sin or addiction, even if you're excusing it by trying to come up with all the reasons why it's bad and you'll never go back there.

Know how to ensure that you don't go there? Go someplace else. Someplace right.

Please understand that I'm not saying to pretend there is no problem if you really have one. I'm not talking about shoving sin into the mountain of stuff under a rug. Sin thrives on darkness, and if you're bound by it, you won't beat it by pretending it's not there. But once you've acknowledged that what you're doing is sin, you've confessed it, and you've determined to forsake it, don't even give it a foothold in your mind by dwelling on not going there.

Focus your thoughts on righteousness, and by default, they won't be foul. If you win the battle in your mind, you'll win it in your body too. Philippians 4:8: "Finally, my brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things."

This can also be summed up as the replacement principle. If there's something bad in your life you want to get rid of, you don't just chuck it out and expect everything to be super awesomeriffic. You replace it with something good. If you don't replace the bad thing, it leaves a vacuum, and that vacuum is often filled with something you really don't want in there. Instead, you shove out the bad thing by replacing it with something good. If you don't want to take a trip into sin, start traveling toward righteousness.

Don't want to go to Chicago? Then start heading for New Orleans. Don't want to walk back into addiction? Then start taking steps into righteousness.