A friend once told me, as she picked up her Diet Coke during our practice water break, “You gotta have a vice, right?”.
It was kind of funny and perhaps an off-hand remark, but for some reason it was on my mind yesterday. I started mulling it over and contemplating vices.
Like how I didn’t know at the time that she was about to approach 1 year of sobriety and so a Diet Coke “vice” was actually a victory.
Then I was thinking about my own vices – and how wouldn’t it be nice if you got to pick your vice? I would totally pick something innocous and manageable and easily defeatable (or at least put-it-in-its-place-able).
But instead you are stuck with vices that feel like they impart themselves onto you and your being. St. Paul wrote, “I do not do the good I wish to do, but I do the thing I do not wish to do.” (paraphrase-ish, I can never remember the exact quote). And then you have to wrestle with these vices constantly – trying to keep them at bay.
The plus side is when you get to see the vice rather than it going along undetected. It is better to wrestle and do battle with a vice than for the vice to creep along inside you unnoticed.
And when you see the vice you can work to take it on head-to-head, to meet it eye-to-eye, to look it in its shadowy-elusive-attempting-to-be-covered-face and take steps towards unmasking it and then, thru the grace of God and strength of Jesus, you can tell the vice you know it is there and that it will not overpower you. Yes, easier said than done. And you will countless times fall, but if you keep trying you will not fail.
It can be discouraging to have a vice and to know it’s there and to feel somewhat powerless against it. But you are not powerless against it — prayer and God’s grace will give you the strength to continue to rise against it. “He will raise you up” –on the last day and all of those days in between. You may fall, but with God you will not fail.
So take the time to get to know your vices. Examine yourself and see what vices are trying to hide – perhaps well hidden or perhaps in plain sight. Then be bold and brave and start to confront that vice. Your first step is to recognize it. Your second step is to lean on God to rise against it day after day after day.
Over time you too may be able to turn to a friend and joke about your latest “vice” – knowing that you are walking in the way of victory, one step at a time.
(PS. I guess I should add that a “replacement vice” isn’t exactly ideal. But if your replacement “vice” isn’t actually a real sin-causing vice I’m all for it. Have it pass the Diet Coke test. Does this “vice” harm me? Does this “vice” impede my relationship with God and others? Is this “vice” sinful and actually another vice I have to overcome?)
In a quest to learn I touch more, I watched this helpful video. He tackles this issue a bit more eloquently than I have:
