The Maturity of Restraint

“Keep back thy servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me: then shall I be upright, and I shall be innocent from the great transgression.” (Ps 19:13 AV)

 

Let’s be honest.  There are those things which seem to hand on, even though we have paid a heavy price for them.  These presumptuous sins will not let go.  They are stubborn.  We cry out to God for forgiveness and relief.  God wants us to be free of them more than we do.  We know that if we do not respond to God’s correction, these things will lead us down the road of destruction.  There is a solution.  There are answers for stubborn self-will.  Above, we see two of those means.  The first is to ask and accept God’s restraining hand.  To keep back means to restrain.  This restraint means there is a loss of liberty.  We simply cannot go or do what we want to do.  Some options are no longer available.  This does not happen willingly.  Thus the nature of restraint.  Asking for restraint is a very grown-up thing to do.  The second piece of the puzzle is an understanding of one’s condition.  David asks the LORD to address a sin that seems to dominate him.  This takes maturity also.  To admit one has a problem that he or she cannot control takes a very mature person.  By the way, we all have these issues.  There isn’t a soul alive who doesn’t battle a stubborn sin or two.  So, if you are wondering if admitting the obvious somehow makes you a weak person, the weak person is actually the person who ignores the stubborn sin and will not seek help.  There has to be a desire to be free from it and an acknowledgment of the power it has.  Otherwise, the degree of captivity to it only gets worse.

When we stop and think about exactly what David is asking, he is seeking God to interrupt his life by any means possible to make his presumptuous sins inconvenient.  He is asking the LORD to restrain him from them.  We don’t know what these sins are.  We do not know the nature of them.  What we do know is they have an overwhelming power over him to the point he could not resist.  What David is seeking is a major interruption to his life that would cause him to have to work at falling for these sins.  We do not like our liberty restrained.  We do not like choices being taken away.  But the mature person realizes there are some areas of life where that is exactly what they need.  They need the LORD to provide the means where a choice to fail is not even possible.

No matter the sin, there is always a way out.  There are always steps the saint can take to be free of them or it.  It begins with a coming to the end of oneself.  It starts with realizing just how much dominion a particular sin has.  It starts with a good hard look in the mirror.  It takes honesty and a willingness to admit one’s weakness and failure.  However, it cannot stop there.  This may make us feel better, but it does not remove the inclination to reject that sin.  Our confession and self-abatement may pacify our guilt, but it does not remove the temptation.  The next step is to seek God’s face on the matter.  Victory over sin is impossible without the exercise of prayer.  One must be in constant prayer.  Especially when temptation rears its ugly head.  The next step above is to seek God’s restraints.  These restraints are often out of our control.  They are often the removal, by force, of those things that make falling to these sins much more difficult.  Paul was a bit too confident and self-reliant.  God gave him bad eyesight so he had to rely on others for his ministry.  There are ways to slay the dragon.  We just have to want it bad enough that we are willing to ask God for His restraints, accept them, and not seek a work-a-around to fulfill our lusts.  These times are times to grow up.  It is time to put our big boy pants on and fight.  It is time to tell the devil to get lost.  It is a time to accept the boundaries God has for us so that sin will not dominate the heart and life.