Habits, Hobbies, and Traditions: A God-Given Necessity in Fighting Sexual Sin

All sexual sin pursues a pattern to life that’s contrary to God’s design for seasonal living. Thus, fighting sexual sin involves our submission to God’s ordered seasons and rhythms in life. But what is seasonal living?

Seasonal Living Defined

I define seasonal living as the art of recognizing and submitting to God’s intentionally ordered rhythms as revealed in Scripture and nature. Ecclesiastes 3 is the pinnacle proof-text for seasonal living. In this chapter, the wise King Solomon lists many of life’s rhythms which we observe consistently in nature: life and death, reaping and sowing, embracing and refraining, laughing and weeping … to name a few.

Every human observes and experiences these rhythms in some way. Yet, it is only by the regenerative work of God’s Holy Spirit that Christians can interpret the fullness of seasonal living. We don’t just observe these natural patterns of life, but we also recognize the purposeful hand of God upon them, crafting in us, through our submission to these divine rhythms, something eternally beautiful (Eccles. 3:11). Puritan minister Matthew Henry captures this well: “God thus changes his disposals [what he brings into our lives], and yet is unchangeable in his counsels, not to perplex us, much less to drive us to despair, but to teach us our duty to him and engage us to do it.” Seasonal living is intentionally living out every experience of life glorifying and enjoying God forever.   

Seasonal Living and Fighting Sexual Sin  

To embrace seasonal living is to intentionally experience the seasons of life God gives us. God provides stability, come what may, and resting in his order provides peace that makes room for a balanced and whole life. In contrast, a life patterned towards sexual sin leads to an unbalanced way of living, full of misplaced and destructive obsessions, driven by compulsiveness and an absence of self-control. These conflicting rhythms of life fight for a foundational place of influence within our hearts. Will your heart worshipfully march along trusting in the rhythms of God or march to the beat of your own drum?

Since God is the true Creator, Sustainer, and Lord of all things (Col. 1), no one can overthrow his established structure for life’s seasons. The best that evil can do is conjure up illusions. When we engage in sexual sin, we depend upon fantasized escapism; we attempt to numb our emotions and construct a false sense of control over our own lives. This is the great deception of sexual sin—it’s the lie that sin offers us anything that is, to any degree, good and true (Phil. 4). It’s like artificially flavored and processed foods. In an unnatural way, those potato chips might be made to taste like pickles, but you also taste the deception. It leaves you with a sour aftertaste of dissatisfaction, feeling a bit unwell, and longing for the crunch of a real pickle.

Living on the diet of illusions never nourishes or satisfies the soul. It is always to our detriment because we can only rightly handle the unfolding of our lives when we embrace reality. Seasonal living is the only means by which we live according to reality, where we navigate through life without persistently propping up the grand illusion that is our futile rebellion against God. In seasonal living, we embrace the consistency of coram Deo, where we live all of life’s seasons before the face of a God who is intimately active in the lives of his people (Ps. 23, 73). Seasonal living is vital for fighting sexual sin.

Seasonal Living through Habits, Hobbies, and Traditions  

Seasonal living requires growing in the skill of seeing God in life’s daily unfolding. Is God with me now, and can I trust him to move into the full weight of what is ahead of me? As I write, I’m tempted to resist seasonal living, to pursue my own glory, to not acknowledge the presence of God in my ministry labors. I’m tempted to go past my set time, my season, for working today to the detriment of enjoying with God the daily rhythms of eating a good dinner, leading my family in evening worship, brushing my teeth, and settling in for a much-needed slumber. We all face the temptation to believe the illusion that we can navigate life better than God can, and sexual sin will often fit into that false conception of the self-governed life. How do we combat such a temptation? A good framework is developing intentional habits, hobbies, and traditions.

Habits are the normal, consistent behaviors you’ve developed for navigating through life. The deceptive nature of sexual sin propagates habits in our lives that are bent toward the pursuit of persistent, immediate, and ever-intensifying gratification. But such habits entirely disregard the long-term consequences of going down the path of habitual dissatisfaction. It is self-enslavement to death, fueled by the lie that when it comes to sin, buying now and paying later is a good exchange (Prov. 5). Habits that uniquely align you with seasonal living are those which direct you toward a lifestyle of delayed gratification. Seasonal living pursues pleasure rooted in first seeking the Lord. Through patience and growing obedience to him, this yields fulfilled desires of the heart which will endure (Matt. 6; Prov. 13:11–12).  

Questions for Cultivating Seasonal Living Habits: 

• Do my daily patterns honor my responsibilities? Am I normally in the right places at the right times?

• Are there relationships in my life that are consistently uncared for? Am I rightly loving God and my neighbors (Matt. 22:36–40)? What habits might I be unintentionally passing down to others through sexual sin?

• Does my day have structure to it? Do I have identifiable boundaries and goals? Do my habits consider the care of both my body and my soul?

• When I face discomfort or have sinful urges in my day, am I pausing to respond intentionally?

Hobbies are habits specifically set apart for pleasure and rest. Good habits produce good hobbies, and vice versa. Another lie of sexual sin is that it claims to be the only available source of comfort and rest for you. The darkness of this deception amazes me. I’ve talked to many men whose engagement with sexual sin has cost them years of their lives in relational brokenness, church discipline, and burdensome counseling; the truth is that sexual sin is never a quick fix. Meanwhile, seasonal living recognizes that in every needed moment there are wonderful rhythms you can add to your life as a gift from God for the sake of your rest and joy! Nurturing wholesome hobbies is a joy-filled way to grow in fighting sexual sin.

Questions for Cultivating Seasonal Living Hobbies:   

• Do you recognize what triggers in your life put you into a state of restlessness, and do you have intentionally-planned hobbies to engage in when those triggers arise? 

• Married couples, are you in tune to one another’s times of restlessness? Are you willing to work together to make room in your family’s schedule for both of you to cultivate hobbies?

• Do your hobbies facilitate personal development? Good hobbies for seasonal living should not be grounded in mindless consumption, but in cultivating enjoyable, life-giving skills. It should be something where you can fully channel your energy, body and soul, into the activity, and where you can safely process your emotions and thoughts in fellowship with God and trusted others.¹

Traditions might be described as codified habits and hobbies which we elevate for the sake of generational formation. They are intentional, planned, communal practices devoted to awareness and reflection upon a given subject, such as thankfulness or the celebration of Christ’s birth. Traditions are vital in fighting sexual sin because they can help to lift our attention off of ourselves and focus our thoughts on God’s reality.

Questions for Cultivating Seasonal Living Traditions: 

• Is sexual sin or my relationship with God shaping how I connect with others?

• Who knows what is valuable to you? How are you sharing those values with others in an intentionally special way?

• Do you have consistent special days set aside in your calendar where you devote yourself to reflecting, with others, upon the many relational qualities of God we all experience as his children?  

Remember the Season Christ Lived for You

Through Christ’s incarnation, when he took on human nature, he experienced the complete scope of seasonal living as our great, sympathetic High Priest (Heb. 4). On the cross, Christ experienced the worst possible season, bearing the full weight of humanity’s depravity and God’s wrath, where he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46).

If this punishment, which we deserve, was our only inevitable end, then yes, giving in to the illusion offered by sexual sin would be better than the effort of seasonal living (1 Cor. 15). But Jesus “was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed” (Isa. 53:5). Christ sacrificially bore his people’s sin on the cross. He dealt with everything that could ever demand your separation from God, so you never have to go through a single season of life without your heavenly Father at your side. In Christ, you can live in every blood-bought season of life fully communing with your God, and growing in godliness through intentionally crafted habits, hobbies, and traditions. 

---

1. Gardening is a great example of a seasonal living hobby, one I’ve been convinced to take up in the new year after studying for this blog. If you have any office gardening tips and tricks, please let me know! ↩︎