Becoming Resensitized

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Becoming Resensitized

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Recently I’ve been on a webcomic kick. (For those who don’t know, a webcomic is a short, regularly published comic strip you can read over the Internet.) After I finished United Church of God’s nine-month Ambassador Bible Center program, I found myself with a lot more spare time than I had the drive to do anything with—and webcomics turned out to be an addictive time waster. It also turns out there are a lot of them floating around, so it’s pretty much impossible to run out of material.

The problem with this is from time to time webcomics—some more than others—will feature some pretty foul language. When I first came into contact with it, my response was to simply ignore it, and that worked for a while. But somewhere along the line, without entirely realizing it, I got used to it. From there a properly executed swear word could actually be a little funny. Soon, as a result of all this, I found that kind of language working its way into my own thoughts.

It’s embarrassing, really. I don’t swear and fully intend to keep it that way. But the words are in my head and it seems as if they’ve taken up residence there—and that’s something I never should have let happen. Now it’s a battle to try to kick them out.

I’m not writing this as some sort of confessional; I just want to give you some example of what I want to talk about: desensitization. It’s the process by which, through continued exposure to one thing or another, we get used to something, accepting it as normal.

The process starts when we’re in the womb. The online science news service EurekAlert! recently reported on a process called fetal habituation—where a fetus, repeatedly exposed to the same stimulus, will eventually recognize it as “safe” and therefore stop responding to it.

We habituate too. It’s just the way we work as human beings. In almost every case, constant exposure to any one thing gradually reduces whatever impact it formerly had on us.

Unfortunately, we can get used to bad things just as easily as we can get used to anything else. Prolonged exposure to violence in the media makes us less and less affected by it to the point where it doesn’t really faze us at all. Sexual promiscuity, at a level that would have been shocking to many just decades ago, has become a normal routine for our society. And as for me, I have swear words stuck in my head that I’m having an awful hard time getting rid of, because I accepted them as normal and okay.

But what happens once we become desensitized to a sin? Is it possible to become resensitized? It’s difficult, but I submit that not only is it possible, it is absolutely necessary that we do.

Let’s look at what God says on the issue. Ideally, you don’t want to deal with becoming desensitized at all, because it’s a very difficult road back. Many have been there—maybe even are there now—and know how true this is. That’s why Paul wrote that we should “flee these things and pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, patience, gentleness. Fight the good fight” (1 Timothy 6:11-12). If we hang around the evil of the world too long, we will begin to accept it as—at the very least—normal.

God hates sin. It’s what separates us from Him and why His Son had to die for us. So, when our attitude towards the things causing this is anything less than hating “every false way” (Psalm 119:104), we have some serious reevaluation to do.

But how do we get from being desensitized to resensitized? Here are a few steps that will help you on your journey.

1. Ask God for the strength to change.

It has to start here. Our own will and drive isn’t going to be enough to bring about any sort of permanent change; it must be coupled with strength and will from God. All things are possible with Him (Philippians 4:13); few things are possible without.

2. Separate yourself from whatever you’ve become desensitized to.

If constant exposure to something has caused you to see it as normal and acceptable, remove yourself from it whenever possible. The less you are around it, the less normal it will seem to you. This is why God’s people living in the end-time Babylon system are told to “come out of her, my people, lest you share in her sins, and lest you receive of her plagues” (Revelation 18:4). Being in a sinful environment is the perfect breeding ground for developing tolerance to sin…so we must remove ourselves when we can.

3. Force yourself back into being disgusted by what’s evil.

Here’s the tricky part. It’s easy when your gut instinct is to hate a sin, but when you’re used to it, you have to mentally tell yourself, “Okay, this is bad. This keeps people separated from God and from having a relationship with Him. This is why Christ was nailed to a tree.” The more we begin to think through the implications of that (Romans 12:2), the more we can regain the knee-jerk emotional response of hating sin that we had lost.

4. DON’T GO BACK!

This seems as if it should be simple. Avoid returning to whatever led you down the path to getting desensitized in the first place. But we make mistakes all the time, and it’s easy to justify certain actions, even when we know where they lead.

But don’t. That’s all there is to it. Do not choose to do it—because it is always a choice. If you do make that mistake, then repeat steps 1-4 until you’ve got it right. Just don’t forget Solomon’s words in Proverbs 26:11—”As a dog returns to his own vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.” Doing the same stupid thing that got you in trouble the first time is like eating your own vomit. Graphic? Certainly, yes. But it makes the point.

If we are to be the lights God called us out of the world to be, we cannot allow ourselves to become accustomed to the evil around us. When we slip back into accepting old familiar sins, we must become resensitized. It is not an option.