"Well," I said. "It looks as though your diabetes isn't in too bad control. Your A1C is 6.6 percent which means that your average sugar is around 140."
"That's great," the older lady told me. "I think to celebrate I'm going to go to the Golden Corral and eat a mess of pancakes!"
"Oh," I said. "That's really not going to help keep things in line."
"At least I'm not going to Walmart," she said. "They have donuts there that I love! They have thick chocolate icing on them that's to die for!"
"Oh," I said, at a loss for words. Neither pancakes or donuts is on a glucose friendly diet. I had visions of her next A1C test being 12.
For some reason, human nature seems to lead us to reward ourselves with the very things that we are denying ourselves. A diabetic who has just gotten her A1C under control rewards herself with chocolate donuts. A man who has just lost fifty pounds rewards himself with a trip to his favorite buffet.
We allow the enemy we are fighting to set up a camp in an area where we have already won the battle. The fight begins again.
It is this way with sin as well. What we need is not control, but a change of our desires and a knowledge that we will not let those desires back in control, even for a single meal.
Otherwise we will end up like a woman with diabetes dreaming of a plate stacked high with pancakes.
With chocolate donuts on the side.
"Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires." Romans 6:12
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