The Snake In Us

I recently read a blog post by Rabbi Daniel Lapin, talking about how, in the Hebrew language, the words for copper and snake are made up of the same root letters. When you look at the word “copper,” the word “snake” rests within the word. Charming, huh? So, it got me to thinking about how that devious snake behavior can hang out in us. Right from the start of this human experience thing, the “serpent” has been a part of the picture. In Genesis 3:1-24, we can see his tricky tactics. And, because of humanity’s screw up, each one of us now has to wrestle with a little snake of our own. You can call it temptation, a character flaw or a weakness, but each one of us has, in some way, fallen for the trick of the snake inside us. Let’s start looking first at how we doubt God. Again, it started in Genesis… “Now the serpent was more subtle than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said unto the woman, ‘Yea, hath God said, Ye shall not eat of every tree of the garden?’” Genesis 3:1 Whether it’s doubts of God loving us, being real and relevantly at work, or whether it’s about our participation in treatment programs and healthy lifestyle choices, there’s that little dangling question in the temptation, isn’t there. Things like… “You don’t need to believe in God to have a great life, right?” “Just lose another five pounds, then you’ll be perfect, right?” “You don’t need to call your sponsor, right?” “You don’t need to keep up with your recovery program, right?” “You don’t need to tell the truth about what you’re doing, right?” It doesn’t take much for us to just embrace, ever so slightly, that wrong thought. And that wrong thought leads to another, followed by a wrong action. And so on, and so on… And then we believe the lie. It may be the tiniest lie, comprised of only one sentence. But from it, other lies are added. And we never know the full damage which can come from believing just that one lie. No one believes taking one drink, doing drugs just once or going on just one diet will end up taking us to such a hopeless place. One of the greatest lies we often buy into? “Just this one time.” But it never quite goes like that, does it? It didn’t for me, with my eating disorder behavior. I chronicle the eating disorder experience I lived through in my book, “Thin Enough: My Spiritual Journey Through the Living Death of an Eating Disorder.” Being an overweight child turned into dieting, which turned into anorexia, and, by my sophomore year of college, had spun out of control into bulimia… “…However, I couldn’t stop the changes going on in my body. It started out with a shift in my thinking. I found myself more obsessed and tortured by food. Suddenly I wanted food right now! And after all, I was eighty pounds. I could afford a little something to eat, right? I was nervous. This went against everything I’d been working for. Do something on my forbidden list?...But my hunger went beyond a growling stomach. True starvation will make you entertain thoughts you wouldn’t dare think otherwise… …Nothing else mattered anymore. Everything else was fuzzy around me: right and wrong, other people, God, consequences. Just food mattered. But things were different now. Innocence toward food was gone. I couldn’t simply “just eat” again. You can’t go back once you’ve been down my road. It’s never again quite as simple as “eat.” I suddenly became aware of all the food around me: food that I had sworn off, food I’d forbidden. When my alone in our apartment, I was tortured by my roommates’ food. I was hungry. And I was tempted. “Come on, just this once, and then you’ll get back on track.” “Come on, your roommates will never miss this food. They’ll never know it’s gone. Besides, it’s just this once, and then you’ll get back on track.” I’d always believed that stealing was wrong, one of the commandments, right? But I was so hungry, right and wrong didn’t matter… …I repeated my new vow, “I’ll do this just one time.” One time became always… …It’s amazing how things sneak up on you. For years now I’d been in denial about my issues with food and weight. First, I convinced myself that I could hide my weight with clothing and sheer will. Then, I was in denial about being too thin, convincing myself that I could cover it too. And now, here I was, trying to convince myself that this third eating disorder, bulimia, wasn’t a reality. It was a “just this one time” thing… …I started each day with good intentions, but my cravings and my body were turning on me. Temptation was too strong now…Bulimia was making all the decisions now. I didn’t have the control to decide my “right weight” anymore. It was deciding me. It became my cruel, demanding god. It was all I ever thought about…” It was just one thought which led me here. Just do this one time; it’s harmless. See yourself and your own little version of that snake-like thought? And then we believe our ego/the hype. That ego drive or hype can be when we’re thin, beautiful, popular, accepted or in control. Those are the usual suspects when it comes to addictions and disorders. Some unmet need is driving those things. We look at a substance, a behavior a thing or a person to be that all providing god to us and make us better than the inferior creature we so often feel we are. Our insecurities want to believe there will be something more to us, to make up for all of the pain. Never mind the fact that God has already created us to be loved and valuable already. “Since you were precious in my sight… I have loved you…” Isaiah 43:4 “I will praise You, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made…” Psalm 139:14 “I have chosen you and have not cast you away.” Isaiah 41:9 No, somehow, that’s not enough; we want more. Ah, yes, the faulty promise of more. It doesn’t quite deliver, but we chase it, all the same. And so, just like Adam and Eve, we get lured by the “more” of our egos and the promised hype… “‘For God doth know that in the day ye eat thereof, then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.’ “And when the woman saw that the tree [was] good for food, and that it [was] pleasant to the eyes, and a tree to be desired to make [one] wise, she took of the fruit thereof, and did eat, and gave also unto her husband with her; and he did eat.” Genesis 3:5-6 In short, just like Adam and Eve’s desire for knowledge, we want to be God. Pretty, isn’t it? And, maybe for a time, when things seem to be going our way, we feel we are God. But sooner or later… reality… “And they heard the voice of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day: and Adam and his wife hid themselves from the presence of the LORD God amongst the trees of the garden. And the LORD God called unto Adam, and said unto him, ‘Where [art] thou?’ Genesis 3:8-9 Yikes! Caught! And then we hide. “And he said, ‘I heard thy voice in the garden, and I was afraid, because I [was] naked; and I hid myself.’” Genesis 3:10 Brilliant plan, huh? But before we laugh and point at Adam and Eve too much, let’s look at our own hide and seek game plan. Concerning our behaviors, whether it is things like denial, deceit or outright hiding, that snake in us does not want to be forthright in any way whatsoever. We’d rather hide and hope the problem goes away by itself. It doesn’t. Why? It’s because we can’t run away from ourselves- and our inner, sneaky snakes. That reality doesn’t feel great when we get confronted with ourselves… “And he said, ‘Who told thee that thou [wast] naked? Hast thou eaten of the tree, whereof I commanded thee that thou shouldest not eat?’ Genesis 3:11 Oh, goody. And then we blame. “And the man said, ‘The woman whom thou gavest [to be] with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat.’ And the LORD God said unto the woman, ‘What [is] this [that] thou hast done? And the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat.’” Genesis 3:12-13 Yeah, the blame game is so effective. Whether it’s Adam and Eve in the garden or a five year old trying to blame a sibling or family pet for eating a forbidden cookie, we love the scapegoat thing. That inner snake does not want to accept responsibility- and face consequences. Nope. We’d rather get away with whatever we want to get away with and have someone else pick up the tab. Yay. So, things look hopeless. It’s all the more reason for God. “For I know that good itself does not dwell 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 I do not do the good I want to do, but 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: Although 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 me, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within me. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body that is subject to death? Thanks be to God, who delivers me through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God’s law, but in my sinful nature a slave to the law of sin.” Romans 7:18-25 We cannot escape our human nature. Nothing we do or don’t do can make us “together” enough. We all need God; we all need a Savior. Let’s remember that the next time our snake gets feisty again. Copyright © 2013 by Sheryle Cruse