www.livethesheendream.com

I can’t tell you how much time I’ve wasted on that website the past two weeks. Watching Charlie Sheen rapidly decompose before my very eyes has been sad but fascinating for whatever reason.

Coupling his story with some recently discovered scripture, I have a new take on sin.

I’ve always thought of sin in terms of darkness, back alleys, deserted corners.  Deep down in a hole. Somewhere in the underbelly. Something you wallow in. But then I read a few chapters in Jeremiah, and I came across several references to the phrase “desolate heights.” It made me pause and think about what desolate heights really meant. Our debauchery on display, high upon a hill in plain view? Another way of saying it’s lonely at the top? The juxtaposition of these two seemingly opposite words was painfully poetic.

Sin can look like success. You can be falling fast but look like you’re climbing.  Celebrities show us this truth on a daily basis. Famous, rich, accomplished, by all accounts they have reached the top of the mountain. And then you watch Charlie Sheen declare himself a “winner” as  he shares what’s left of his scrambled egg brain with a national broadcast audience.

We get lost within idolatry and materialism. Power and Greed.  Self-importance. Self-indulgence. Self-righteousness. Self-medication. As the old adage goes, we climb the ladder but don’t realize we have it propped against the wrong wall. We might find “success” along the way, but it can come at a price.

We go the way of a backsliding Israel in Jeremiah 3:6, who went “up on every mountain and under every green tree, and there played the harlot.”

When we reach our desolate heights, we are fully engaged in our sin. We are up to our eyeballs with it. And we are on display, high upon a hill for everyone to see. It’s ironic that in some cases you can reach your lowest low from the highest place around.

It is very easy for us to get caught up in satisfying self, or to be overwhelmed by sin, to climb all the way to the top of the mountain only to arrive at an empty, barren wasteland, miles away from God and what He wants for us. On a desolate height. But when you find yourself high on that hill, on that desolate height, what do you do?

I suggest you jump. Leap and plunge right back into faith, trusting God will catch you. That’s what I try to do. I throw myself toward God and His mercy. I try to get grounded again as quickly as possible.  I try to change my attitude by changing my altitude. It is indeed lonely at the top. And I have no desire to “live the sheen dream” at all.