When life runs amok...
I've been doing some soul-searching lately. Okay, maybe that's not the best way to grab your attention so you keep reading. I'll be lucky to get through this sentence before your index finger clicks the "back" button on the toolbar above (that is, only if anyone out there still reads this). But still... cut me some slack. Heh.
A lot's happened over the past few months. Some of it has been wonderful and uplifting. Some of it has been as painful and long-lasting as removing each of the hairs on your leg one-by-one with tweezers (not that I've ever tried that myself...but just the thought of such a thing makes me cringe). And amidst all this, I've been just hanging on for the ride. Watching. Waiting to see what will happen next. Wondering how things will all work...in my life, the life of my church, my friendships. Like overlapping circles...life, church, friendships, work, etc. All different aspects of my life, but all connected...
And I've got to start with the circle labeled "ME." The past couple of days I've been moderately depressed. I'm wrestling with how recent events have affected me personally. I'm wrestling with medium-sized problems like financial struggle to large-size problems like little sinful habits popping up here and there that need to be dealt with. But in dealing with any of this, I don't want to drop into a "victim mentality" where I never play a role in everything that happens. Sure, I've been stressed. Sure, I've been dealing with a lot lately. But I'm still responsible for my own behavior - things I SAY. Things I DO. No matter what's going on around me, I'm still accountable for these things that I can control. I can't chalk it up to depression or the way the world's spinning around me. In the end, how I respond to and deal with the tough things in life should reveal a godly character, not one that succumbs to laziness and sinful 'eruptions' that accompany things like anger and depression.
I don't want to defend it. I don't want to excuse it. I want it gone before it takes me down a path of increasing sin and the baggage that comes with it. But that's mostly up to me. Too often I think we sit on our collective rear-ends watching/waiting for something or someone (God) to drop out of the sky, give us a spiritual back massage, help us to our feet, and give us the "Buddy Christ" wink and thumbs-up that will re-invigorate us back into a life of joy and commitment to him. And though I know he could do that if he chose, I think much more often he's standing by us...silently waiting for us to get off our own butt under our own power and taking responsibility for our own actions. Not helping us up, but letting us fall down - hard - so we hopefully will see the folly of our sin and never dance near it again.
When I sin, it's not your fault. It's not God's. It's not my circumstances. Admittedly, circumstances might increase the temptations in our lives, but - in the end - I either choose to sin or don't. And the choices I make infiltrate my whole life-story. The more I choose to sin, the more it infiltrates my life. The more excusable it becomes. The less it looks like sin, simply because I've made it a part of my character...it becomes comfortable. Personally acceptable. Culturally acceptable according to the standards of the world around me. How could it still be called sin if everyone's sinning and getting along just fine?
Then if someone dares approach me and tell me I'm wrong, it feels like they're tearing off a piece of flesh or something because I've "grafted" sin into my life. So I resist. I blame you for being legalistic and not understanding me or having enough patience with me. I blame you for being stuck in 'old ways' and not realizing that some Scriptural guidelines simply do not apply in our 21st century world. "Sin" in the Bible is reduced to nothing but an old-school "churchy" word rather than a real problem in my life. Instead, I hide behind the Scriptures I enjoy about things like "loving others" and words like "joy, peace, worship, etc." I casually ignore the real implications of sin in my life and protect it because it's either not a "big" sin or it's simply seems irrelevant if I'm still committed to God in other areas of my life. Besides, you sin, too. Who are you to tell me I sin if you have sin in your life? Look at YOU, not ME!
And before I even realize it's happened, my faith has become more and more empty. More and more unfulfilling. And I begin to doubt everything I believe. I've complicated everything. Now, to remove a sin - big or small - feels like surgery. I try to cling to principles of forgiveness and statements like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" in every effort I can to get the spotlight off of my own life and on to you or anyone else that's sinning so I don't have to deal with ME.
...
That's the road I don't want to go down. I've been down it in years past, especially when disconnected from a church or at least a good circle of godly friends. And in those times, I've blamed sin on not having a good circle of friends who hold me accountable, but there again is that "victim" mentality that writes off my sin as a product of cirumstance as if to say, "I couldn't help it."
Maybe I cannot help a lot of things. I can't control everything about my job, my church, financial surprises, or even my family schedule. Heck, I may not even be able to control my own sinful nature at all (or we wouldn't need the gospel in the first place). But I still do everything I can to hate my sin and move away from it instead of embracing it and excusing it.
I don't want to ever feel so consumed by my life (again) that I wallow in depression and allow sins to creep in. I want to be a better man than that.
"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." - 2 Cor. 7:10.
A lot's happened over the past few months. Some of it has been wonderful and uplifting. Some of it has been as painful and long-lasting as removing each of the hairs on your leg one-by-one with tweezers (not that I've ever tried that myself...but just the thought of such a thing makes me cringe). And amidst all this, I've been just hanging on for the ride. Watching. Waiting to see what will happen next. Wondering how things will all work...in my life, the life of my church, my friendships. Like overlapping circles...life, church, friendships, work, etc. All different aspects of my life, but all connected...
And I've got to start with the circle labeled "ME." The past couple of days I've been moderately depressed. I'm wrestling with how recent events have affected me personally. I'm wrestling with medium-sized problems like financial struggle to large-size problems like little sinful habits popping up here and there that need to be dealt with. But in dealing with any of this, I don't want to drop into a "victim mentality" where I never play a role in everything that happens. Sure, I've been stressed. Sure, I've been dealing with a lot lately. But I'm still responsible for my own behavior - things I SAY. Things I DO. No matter what's going on around me, I'm still accountable for these things that I can control. I can't chalk it up to depression or the way the world's spinning around me. In the end, how I respond to and deal with the tough things in life should reveal a godly character, not one that succumbs to laziness and sinful 'eruptions' that accompany things like anger and depression.
I don't want to defend it. I don't want to excuse it. I want it gone before it takes me down a path of increasing sin and the baggage that comes with it. But that's mostly up to me. Too often I think we sit on our collective rear-ends watching/waiting for something or someone (God) to drop out of the sky, give us a spiritual back massage, help us to our feet, and give us the "Buddy Christ" wink and thumbs-up that will re-invigorate us back into a life of joy and commitment to him. And though I know he could do that if he chose, I think much more often he's standing by us...silently waiting for us to get off our own butt under our own power and taking responsibility for our own actions. Not helping us up, but letting us fall down - hard - so we hopefully will see the folly of our sin and never dance near it again.
When I sin, it's not your fault. It's not God's. It's not my circumstances. Admittedly, circumstances might increase the temptations in our lives, but - in the end - I either choose to sin or don't. And the choices I make infiltrate my whole life-story. The more I choose to sin, the more it infiltrates my life. The more excusable it becomes. The less it looks like sin, simply because I've made it a part of my character...it becomes comfortable. Personally acceptable. Culturally acceptable according to the standards of the world around me. How could it still be called sin if everyone's sinning and getting along just fine?
Then if someone dares approach me and tell me I'm wrong, it feels like they're tearing off a piece of flesh or something because I've "grafted" sin into my life. So I resist. I blame you for being legalistic and not understanding me or having enough patience with me. I blame you for being stuck in 'old ways' and not realizing that some Scriptural guidelines simply do not apply in our 21st century world. "Sin" in the Bible is reduced to nothing but an old-school "churchy" word rather than a real problem in my life. Instead, I hide behind the Scriptures I enjoy about things like "loving others" and words like "joy, peace, worship, etc." I casually ignore the real implications of sin in my life and protect it because it's either not a "big" sin or it's simply seems irrelevant if I'm still committed to God in other areas of my life. Besides, you sin, too. Who are you to tell me I sin if you have sin in your life? Look at YOU, not ME!
And before I even realize it's happened, my faith has become more and more empty. More and more unfulfilling. And I begin to doubt everything I believe. I've complicated everything. Now, to remove a sin - big or small - feels like surgery. I try to cling to principles of forgiveness and statements like "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" in every effort I can to get the spotlight off of my own life and on to you or anyone else that's sinning so I don't have to deal with ME.
...
That's the road I don't want to go down. I've been down it in years past, especially when disconnected from a church or at least a good circle of godly friends. And in those times, I've blamed sin on not having a good circle of friends who hold me accountable, but there again is that "victim" mentality that writes off my sin as a product of cirumstance as if to say, "I couldn't help it."
Maybe I cannot help a lot of things. I can't control everything about my job, my church, financial surprises, or even my family schedule. Heck, I may not even be able to control my own sinful nature at all (or we wouldn't need the gospel in the first place). But I still do everything I can to hate my sin and move away from it instead of embracing it and excusing it.
I don't want to ever feel so consumed by my life (again) that I wallow in depression and allow sins to creep in. I want to be a better man than that.
"Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death." - 2 Cor. 7:10.
5 Comments:
check this out:
http://www.theooze.com/articles/article.cfm?id=272
interesting commentary on sin.
i don't agree with 100% of it, as i don't see that we should focus less on imitation... just understand what we are imitating - learning what the kingdom of god is and learning our prayer about the kingdom that christ taught us.
just thought it might fit with your 'sin' entry.
i certainly do think that too much time is concerned with the subject in the first place. after all, we can change our outward actions, but only god can change the heart. and the heart is what permanently changes our responses to life.
"Sin" is often a buzzword in the church nowadays. There's a sign on a church on Spring Ave. that says "There's a hotter place" right now... hellfire and damnation...
I think people look at sin one of two ways: Either they dwell on it too much that there's no room left for freedom, hope, and grace (legalism), or they overlook it completely as if there is no sin. It's certainly not an overlooked topic in Scripture, but there's it's tempered with grace - freedom from sin...overcoming sin...through Christ.
I certainly think it's God working in us that purges us of sin. I only meant in this e-mail that I think we have a predisposition to ride on this fact sometimes and don't do our part. We may see ourselves basking in things like "grace" and "forgiveness," but fail to do the whole "repentance" thing... the turning away from it...the changing of our outward actions, the attempt to take every thought captive. Not as a way of earning a salvation we could never earn on our own, but responding to the things Christ does in our hearts.
As long as we're not simply emotion-driven people who only repent when "prompted" by some spiritual high or low, I think that's a step in the right direction. Doing the right thing because we know it's the right thing.
That's why I like that scripture verse (2 Cor. 7:10). There's a type of repentance that is full of grace and forgiveness (conviction, making a change)...and there's a type of "sorrowful" repentance that's void of hope and only full of guilt. Unfortunately, a lot of churches seem to create this mindset of a "wordly sorrow" that just beats people up.
In my own life, I want to feel convicted. I want God to come in and change my heart and purge what needs to be purged. At the same time, I sometimes feel I fill up my heart with so much crap that I wouldn't recognize God's voice if he was screaming at me. But I know that the stuff I put in there is crap. So I ought to get rid of it. Spend my time doing more godly things. Dealing with negative emotions. Watching the way I talk, act, live... I think that is a way of God changing our heart. Just the knowledge conviction to do something about it at all (sin) usually comes from Him.
yeah, i agree. i think though that just the fact of trying to love god more and love other people actually accomplishes this. i feel like certainly there should be a balance between legalism and the concept of 'no sin,' but i think that focusing on sin itself usually just leads to us focusing on ourselves even more instead of on christ. it's like we're driving a car and it starts veering horribly, so we just try to compensate by oversteering. we forget there is actually an issue that has nothing to do with trying to drive straight, it's fixing the flat that just happened. it's focusing on where the tire meets the asphalt (heh.. just trying to avoid the cliche). it's focusing on god and wanting to know him more. if we love him and then love everyone around us - friends, enimies, people you don't even know - you are forced into a life out of sin. it's evident that if we are in the love of the spirit we are without sin. so, i think it's much more of an issue of focusing on love that will clear us of our sin. it might not start from the outside in, but once it changes something it really changes it. it's not something done by, like you and the bible said, guilt, it's by honest love and conviction to love more.
cool thoughts.
fun discussion.
how've you been by the way? last time i saw you i believe it was because john doesn't know how to drive.....
I think the bottom line is that we are sinful creatures at heart, and only Christ can re-write his law in our hearts so to speak for any real change to happen. And as we get to know him...spend time with him...living as he lived, serving as he served...that sort of thing, then we begin to change from the inside out as he works within us. And as far as "sin" is concerned, we fight the temptation to steer our own lives and indulge in our own whims and temptations and instead choose to imitate him...and the change continues as he continues to "rub off" on us, so to speak. It's not overcoming sin on our own. It's choosing to let Christ work in us.
Anyway... fun stuff. It's just a very real issue to me right now. What to do with this thing called sin that's become a bad word in emergent churches. It should be, in the sense that the modern church has capitalized on an unbalanced gospel that condemns and guilt-trips even after the conversion experience... But sin is still a real thing...knowing how to deal with it (i.e., let Christ work in us to purge it) is still something that needs to happen in my life...in our lives... To the woman about to be stoned having been caught in the act of adultery, Jesus challenged the judgmental religious leaders with the whole "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" and as they left asked the woman, "where are your accusers?" But, forgiving her, he still challenged her to "go and sin no more." It's the difference between dealing with sin with grace and forgiveness in a way that still treats it seriously and dealing with sin like an executioner waiting for someone to commit the next "crime."
deep stuff.
By the way, I've been fine. Busy as heck. Been a long couple of months emotionally, spiritually, vocationally, etc. So, as you might expect, lots of changes happening all around me...a lot on my plate to get organized/re-organized, but it's all working out in ways I didn't expect - good ways. And that's a good thing.
But I need a vacation anyway. Heh. Heading to the beach at the beginning of August, so that will help.
You?
working working working. trying to get another job so i can keep working working working. i need to take a vacation myself!! beach, august, sounds good... maybe i'll get to break away sometime soon, too.
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