364. Danger of Awareness

One thing we forget is our desire “grows”. Small desires don’t remain as small desires. Desires may look small and harmless at their inception. But they can quickly grow into a form of desire we never imagined before.

James tells us that desire begets sin, sin grows and eventually, sin begets death. (James 1:15) It all begins with a small desire, just like a child grows. But you can no longer control it if you allow it to grow over time. We must control it at the “desire” level by watching what we allow in our minds and time.

Desire is mostly created from “awareness”. We don’t desire what we don’t know or have not experienced. Eve took the bite because she was “aware” of the tree and viewed it as special. Before the temptation, to her, it was probably one of the trees she passed by every day, while she was on her way to eat from the tree of life.

Satan is crafty in that he never throws us a seemingly “dangerous” desire. It is usually a small seed of want and attraction, which grows into lust and obsession, and eventually grows into something big that ruins what is precious to you. Mindlessly exposing ourselves to the things that are desirable through eye-shopping or looking at ads creates “awareness” without us realizing it. Then, later, we begin to have a strong compulsion to purchase something only to regret it later. We wonder where that came from, but the seed was sown a long time ago.

If you struggle with such desires, start dealing with it at the “awareness” level. These steps may help: Stop visiting certain websites that may be mostly harmless but contain small exposure to desirable things or images, unsubscribing from promotional emails, going on social media fast and not going to certain places. Once you become less aware, you will find you begin to desire less. Don’t fight desire when it is grown. Fight it when it is still small.