Working Hard at Sin

“They search out iniquities; they accomplish a diligent search: both the inward [thought] of every one [of them], and the heart, [is] deep.” (Ps 64:6 AV)

I was struck by the phrase ‘diligent search’.  My mind immediately went to how hard we work at sin.  This wickedness is not merely yielding to in impulsive temptation.  This degree of sin is planned and executed.  At what point does working for pleasure become a pleasure in itself?  To accomplish something means to make an end of it.  Therefore, those who sin as a conscious choice of life exhaust all avenues to experience that sin.  It ends one of two ways.  Those bent on sin will work very hard at finding it.  They will look at every conceivable place.  If sin is not found, a new search ensues.  I guess what strikes me as odd is that sinful mankind will work extra hard at self-pleasure that only ends in emptiness and destruction, but will not work equally hard at righteousness.

This reminds me of a situation many years ago.  A couple traveled a significant distance to visit my wife and me.  We had known this couple for a long time.  Their marriage was strained, and they thought a vacation would help.  One problem they faced was that the husband was a substance abuser.  He had been for years.  He was in and out of rehab.  This fella even traveled thousands of miles to enter a program.  He was clean for a while, but eventually fell back into old habits.  At the time of our visit, we lived in a very high-crime city and neighborhood.  It was the second day of their week-long visit that the husband said he needed to go to a bank and deposit a check.  I thought that was odd since the likelihood of finding a national bank similar to the one they used at home would be a feat.  Off he went, and he left his wife behind.  Which I thought was also odd.  He was gone for several hours.  That was also odd.  An errand that should have take no more than thirty minutes took most of the morning.  I later found out he had hit the streets and was looking to score some drugs.  The thing is, our neighborhood was extremely dangerous.  Especially for someone like my friend.  He worked awfully hard to find his drug of choice even to the point of risking his life to do so.

Our phones and computers come with search engines.  Based on the settings one has, the results can be rather wicked.  Filters have to be put in place to avoid seeing things the browser need not see.  The same is true with sin.  We can work awfully hard as self-pleasure.  We can go to the extent of our search to feel, see, or think something that God calls wicked.  The best practice is the install filters.  We have the filter of God’s word.  We have the filter of fellow believers.  Most of all, we have the filter of the presence of God in the person of the Holy Spirit.  If only we would work just as hard at holiness as we do sin, we would be more like Christ than we are.