Braedi and I recently read Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde by Robert Louis Stevenson. It's a story about a doctor who experiments with the idea that people are really 2 (or maybe more) separate people. The doctor was able to create a potion that turned him into his other self--Mr. Hyde. As Mr. Hyde, the doctor was able to do the things that a person of his status wouldn't normally do--gamble, be rude, get drunk, etc. Whenever Dr. Jekyll felt an urge to do those things, he would turn into Mr. Hyde. Then he would take another potion and return to his respectable self. After Mr. Hyde killed a man, Dr. Jekyll decided that he would have to git rid of Mr. Hyde and stay Dr. Jekyll. But after a short period of time Dr. Jekyll found that Mr. Hyde could appear without the potion and that it was harder and harder for him to return to himself. This made me think of the temptations and sins that we struggle with. We all have weaknesses that we are fighting daily to overcome. They might be addictions to drugs or alcohol, pornography, same sex attraction, anger, over-eating, or any other thing. Sometimes we give in to those weaknesses. Sometimes we are able to fight them off.
As Braedi and I read and discussed I compared our weaknesses to Mr. Hyde. When Dr. Jekyll turned into Mr. Hyde he was giving into his weakness. When he chose to never turn into Mr. Hyde again it was like he was fighting the weakness. Unfortunately because he had given in to the temptation so many times before it was a lot harder for him to change and eventually it was impossible and Mr. Hyde won. I told Braedi that when we continually give in to temptations it is harder to repent and change. But, unlike Dr. Jekyll, with Christ on our side we can win.
