A Promise Made Before the Moment

Job says, I have made a covenant with my eyes; how then could I gaze at a virgin? What strikes me here is the timing. Job does not describe himself wrestling in the middle of temptation, white knuckled, deciding in the heat of it what he will do. He describes a decision he made earlier, in a calm hour, and a covenant is a binding thing rather than a passing mood. He settled the question before the question arrived. Most of us try to make these decisions at the worst possible time, in the exact moment our judgment is clouded and our body is arguing hard for the very thing that will hurt us. We lose because we are deciding too late. Job had already told his eyes where they may and may not go, so when the moment came the answer was old news. There is a strange freedom in settling something in advance. You can decide today, while your head is clear, what you will do the next time your wife is asleep and the house is quiet and the phone is in your hand. Make the covenant now. Tell God the terms plainly, and ask him to hold you to what your clearer self has already decided.