A pair of Brant scan the open Arctic tundra, looking for a place to build a nest and begin another season of child-rearing. These small chunky geese (sometimes called Brent geese) inspect the area around a slightly raised grassy mound. The area looks perfect, except for one looming setback. Atop the mound sits the only other nest in sight, ominously occupied by a pair of Snowy Owls. The Snowy Owl is an impressive apex predator: the largest raptor of the High Arctic and the heaviest owl in North America, with an undiscriminating palette suited to almost any available prey. They are also fiercely territorial.
A lovely place to raise a family, right?
Actually, these Brants think so. The geese know that nesting a few yards from the owls will offer some solid short-term benefits. A Brant would normally be too hefty a meal for an owl; on the other hand, these geese are daily susceptible to attacks from Arctic Foxes. But a fox generally won’t approach an owl mound, out of a healthy respect for its occupants. And so, as long as the geese stick close to the owls, they are under the protection of the area’s mafia don… a sort of “fox force field.”
But as with most relationships involving the mob, assets quickly turn to liabilities. When the goose eggs hatch, the chicks come into the world under the steely-yellow gaze of the owls, who happen to be looking for snacks for newly hatched chicks of their own. True, the Snowy Owls prefer lemmings to all other dinners. But hey, those Brant chicks are remarkably lemming-sized. The owls, who have been seemingly disinterested in the Brant nest up to this point, suddenly perk up like a swarm of schoolkids around a plate of warm chocolate chip cookies. Yummy.
The Brant parents now have to switch from wary nest-warmers to fierce defenders of the flock, charging the swooping owls when necessary, being anxiously hyper-vigilant, and waiting for the chicks to get big enough to pack it up and evacuate to safer territory. There goes the neighborhood.[1]
The Donut of Death
It’s a strange game of roulette, trying to make friends with a short-term gain only to find yourself running from a long-term threat. The Brant enjoys a season of relative comfort, but the long-range forecast is not pretty. If you’re a Brant, you appreciate the bodyguard, but you can’t forget that it still wants to collect your bones for its next owl pellet.
That truth has so many pertinent applications of short-term gain for long-term loss. We may enjoy the momentary fun of purchases that are beyond our financial means, while slowly becoming a slave to the accruing debt. Politically, we may make convenient allies with those who agree with us on a key concern, while letting a host of bigger troubles in the back door. In parenting, we may decide that a certain healthy limit for our children just isn’t worth the fight right now, paving the way for bigger challenges and dysfunctions later on.
But more broadly, I think this pattern is seen in the way we make friends with our own sin. The perfect description is found in Psalm 1:
“Blessed is the man
who walks not in the counsel of the wicked,
nor stands in the way of sinners,
nor sits in the seat of scoffers.” (v. 1)
Notice the increasing level of commitment in that verse: walking to standing, standing to sitting. It’s one thing to be in the vicinity of sin, casually window-shopping. It’s a deeper commitment to stop and stand there, and yet another step to sit down and make yourself comfortable. What starts as a curious fly-by eventually becomes a nest in some dangerous turf.
To use a semi-harmless example, imagine me trying to get serious about my health, starting with a new resistance to the allure of Krispy-Kreme Donuts. After some initial success, I soon find myself (to paraphrase H.I. McDunnough in Raising Arizona) “driving by Krispy Kreme shops that weren’t on the way home.” Eventually, I’m in Stage Two, parked outside the bakery in an existential crisis, engine running to prove “I can resist” but windows rolled down to flirt with the aroma. No surprise, the donut is winning. Stage Three: I’m at the counter; being asked “Dine-in or carry-out?” This is how temptation works. We play with it, then we plan it, then we get cozy with it.
We teach that faith has three parts: assent, belief, and trust. Think of it as: “I know it, I believe it, and I will commit my life to it.” But when you pursue a God-substitute it works the same way: knowing, believing, trusting. It makes sense to me, then I start to believe it and rationalize it, and in time this is where I will go to make life work for me. “Walking, standing, sitting” illustrates the places where our allegiances are discovered, made, and committed to.
The donut can be anything: gossip, pornography, drinking too much, gambling, stewing in your anger, stealing from your employer, pursuing an office affair. It may start with the rationalization of “exercising my freedom” but it ends in a form of slavery. “There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death” (Proverbs 14:12). It starts in a poorly chosen patch of tundra, and it ends in talons.
The Sweeter Song
How do we avoid the allure? How might a reasonable Brant find a safer scenario — greener pastures without all that death-from-above nonsense? Notice how Psalm 1 makes the turn:
“But his delight is in the law of the LORD,
and on his law he meditates day and night.” (v. 2)
Temptation rarely relents simply by wanting something less. Of course, it’s a healthy thing to try to curb our appetite for sin, but often we resort to behavior modifications that may work for a season on our outward behavior, but don’t truly change the heart. We need help not just in addressing our behavior but in changing the heart underneath it.
My favorite illustration of this is the Island of Sirens in Greek literature. According to the legends, the island was inhabited by bloodthirsty mermaids whose beautifully irresistible song would lure sailors to their shipwrecked shores to die. Nice place. If you’ve read The Odyssey, you’ll remember Odysseus’ tactic. He wanted to hear this legendary song and yet live to tell the tale. And so, after putting wax in all the crew’s ears so that they couldn’t succumb to the song, he ordered his crew to tie him to the mast and ignore any order he might give to the contrary until they were safely out of danger.
His plan works — sort of. His ship safely navigates past the island, and Odysseus hears the song and survives it, almost going mad against the mast in the process. He flirted with temptation all the way to the deadly edge — he walked in it, he stood in it, and he sat in it. Only his crew kept him from dying in it. External restraint without internal change.
By all means, put filters on your web browser if you’re tempted to porn, and avoid the pub if you’re an alcoholic. It's smart to have certain restraints and safeguards in place to keep us from sin. But you can address the behavior and miss the heart. You may learn how to control your tongue but still harbor all sorts of internal rage. You may get your budget in check but remain dissatisfied and ever-longing for bigger, better, more. You may throw your computer out the window but still retain a lustful heart.
Can we go one step deeper? By God’s grace, I think we can.
Back on the Island of Sirens, we’re reminded of another story and another crew that had to get by the same island: Jason and the Argonauts. But Jason and his crew used a far different survival tactic with a lot less wax and rope. Instead, wonderfully, Jason simply hired the greatest musician in the Empire: Orpheus. As the Argo approached the island, Jason instructed Orpheus to sit on the bow of the ship and play. The resulting song was so much more beautiful than the song of the sirens that the crew was entirely unaffected by the threat. Their hearts were captivated by a more beautiful song.
We need something that captures our attention so strongly that the lesser voices simply fail to charm us. The Puritan Thomas Chalmers majestically called it “the expulsive power of a new affection.” In a sermon by that name, he wrote, “The love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world’s worthlessness. But may it not be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself?” There’s a song that’s more beautiful than the songs that tempt us to smash against the rocks. If the safer nest site captivates our heart, we're less tempted to set up shop on the edge of the predator’s mound. “His delight is in the law of the Lord.”
What does it mean to delight in the law of the Lord? It’s not simply, “Wow, I really love that eighth commandment! I love not stealing!” Think deeper. The psalmist has discovered not only the joy of the law, but the joy of its author, and what his word reveals about his character. I won’t steal because God provides. I won’t lie because God is truth. I won’t kill because God is life. The will of God reveals the character of God, and that captivates the psalmist. He loves his God more than he loves his sin; he’s found a sweeter song.
We can never live out Psalm 1 consistently; we’re too prone to wander in our walking-standing-sitting. That’s why Christians through the ages have extolled Jesus as their sweetest song — the one who delighted in the law so perfectly that he would live it, fulfill it, and stand in our place for our failure to keep it. We make real progress in our faith not when we love our sin less (though that is an amazing grace!), but when we love Jesus more — when we behold him as our most beautiful song. For all the times we’ve walked, stood, and sat in regrettable places, Jesus paid the way for us to abide in him, rooting us in what Psalm 1:3 calls “a tree planted by streams of water” rather than a nest planted by a hungry predator. “Blessed are all who take refuge in him” (Psalm 2:12).
[1] You can find this scene in David Attenborough’s Life of Birds documentary series, in Episode 9: “The Problems of Parenting.”