Playing the long game

 This week's verses are on 1 Peter 2:11-12:

Dear friends, I urge you as foreigners and exiles to keep away from fleshly desires that do battle against the soul, and maintain good conduct among the non-Christians, so that though they now malign you as wrongdoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God when he appears.

 For context, the people to whom Peter was writing these verses were not living in a society that embraced the Christian faith. They were openly discriminated against, and were often attacked for their beliefs. So what Peter is asking them to do isn't some shallow request to "be nice and always do the right thing." He's asking them to simultaneously take abuse and master their base impulses that would cause them to lash out. And he's asking it as a matter of life and death.

 Even without being persecuted, our fleshly desires often do battle against the soul. We all know that Wikipedia calls out in the midst of the afternoon, when we have to be focused on that report that's due tomorrow. Our morning quiet time gets cut short by the hot date our stomach reminds us we have with breakfast. Our evening prayer gets rescheduled to make room for Netflix, or maybe we just decide to go to bed early. While sex and drugs may be the most fashionable temptations to ask for prayer for, the heavy lifting is often done by all sorts of mundane things like hunger, fatigue and anger.

When the flesh calls the shots on the ordinary things, sometimes it gets its way on the bigger things too. Road rage is a thing. So is infidelity. In these verses, Christians had every reason to go to war with the non-Christians who were making their lives miserable. Every reason except the reason that endured the cross. But if they can't say no to that second glass of wine with dinner and dessert after lunch, how are they going to say no to punching their neighbor's lights out for spitting at them one too many times?

So what Peter is saying is make some space between those things that wear down your ability to say no, so that you can focus on the big picture and stay strong in those bigger things. Studies have shown that people who are placed in a position where they have to resist temptation over a long period of time tend to make compromises in other areas when they finally run out of willpower. So you want to avoid those cases where you're living in temptationville.

If we are on a battlefield, then it is wise to prepare that battlefield to tilt in our favor. That is what Peter is telling us how to do: Keep away from the fleshly desires that do battle against the soul and focus on loving your enemies. And he tells us why: So that they will glorify God when he appears.

Do we think about glorifying God through our actions? If we're supposed to be ambassadors of God's kingdom, wouldn't it make sense that our actions should portray our king both as authentically as possible and in the best possible light? It's kind of our job. But instead of thinking about that, we often just think about what we want in the moment.

So Peter is telling us to play the long game: Suffer and make sacrifices now so that things will pay off in the long run. Think about what that might mean for you, and put some space between you and the things you love that get you into trouble so that you can be on your best behavior for those people who hate you and see you as foreign.