Rainprints

Today was the last day of 2005, a very difficult year for me. As I was running on the beach this morning, it started to rain. Not a sprinkle. Not a down pour. Not a drizzle or mist. A brief, very intentional rain, leaving clearly defined "rain prints" in the sand. A cold, cleansing rain.
Intentional, cold, and steady enough to wash away dust & pain
Brief enough to not wash away the memories or the distinct imprints of the drops
Imprints left as memories of past mistakes that have been washed, healed, cleansed by a faithful Father.
And the wind blew.

Party Preparation

The presents are bought (well, most of them)
And all neatly wrapped (well some of them)
The cookies are baked (except for the ones I mixed up, put in the fridge and forgot about)
Cards are mailed; it's a fact! (well, ONE card got mailed...the rest are still in the process of being addressed)

The tree's decorated (Actually, we got 2 trees this year and only one is decorated so far)
The creche on the hearth (Thanks to Molly)
I'm ready for Christmas
At least in my heart!

Jesus, thank you that all I have to do to be ready for the real meaning of Christmas is to be still and know you. How ironic that our preparations for your birthday celebration are exactly the opposite of being still. Today I will be still and I will know that YOU are God.
-amen

Forgiveness vs. forgiveness

I like forgiving people. It makes me feel really good. I know that forgiveness isn't easy for everyone. You frequently hear about people struggling because they can't forgive someone. It binds them in a kind of slavery. They are filled with bitterness and pain. There is no blessing in their lives. People recognize this. They talk about it. This is not a new concept! But for me the hard part isn't giving it- it's accepting it. And even harder? Accepting it from myself.

Now let's talk about this. If I refuse to forgive myself for something,I live under the condemnation and guilt associated with that unforgiveness. In this behavior, I am placing a higher priority on my self forgiveness than on God's forgiveness. Mine is more desirable and more important than his. And guess what? That doesn't settle too well with God. There are several reasons that this doesn't set well with him. First and foremost might just be the amount of suffering he had to endure to accomplish that forgiveness for me.

In Hebrews 9:22, we are reminded that without a blood sacrifice, there is no forgiveness of sin. And when I reject God's forgiveness in lieu of my own I am asked to show evidence of the blood sacrifice. Exactly where is it, Allison? Don't have it? Empty handed? You bet... and a little humbled. And being humbled is a good thing. If I am going to learn from my sins and repent and "sin no more", I must know the way that I am to walk. In Psalm 25, David declares that God guides the humble in what is right and teaches them his way. God cannot teach me if I am prideful and only he can release my feet from this snare of prideful unforgiveness (Ps. 25:15)

Another reason that this preferential treatment of my forgiveness over God's doesn't settle well with him is because of why he chose to forgive in the first place. God forgives "for his name's sake". It's who he is. It's his very nature. Forgiveness is to be equated with his name (Daniel 9:19). When I refuse his forgiveness in preference of my own, I discredit his name! For Pete's sake! Who on earth would want a God whose forgiveness is so feeble that it holds no power over my own? Is this truely how I see God? Do I believe him to be so weak that my ability to forgive holds more power than his own? By accepting God's forgiveness, I can live a life that shines before unbelievers and shows them that God's way is the One True Way, the One True Life. By refusing his forgiveness, I am trashing not only his name but my witness as well. I am disrespecting Jesus' command that I shine for him so that others will be drawn to him.

Yet another reason that my unforgiveness doesn't settle well with God is found in Matthew 6:14-15. If I don't forgive someone (myself included), then God will not forgive me! Wait a minute! How can this be? But I didn't say it; Jesus did! And not just once, either. Even in our Lord's prayer Jesus teaches us to pray that we should be forgiven as we forgive others. Jesus also tells the parable of the unmerciful servant in Matthew 18:21-35. I've always destested this servant! How could he be so unmerciful after he was forgiven of so much! How could he turn around and treat his fellow servant like that! But here I'm finding that I am that unmerciful servant! God has forgiven me of sins too many to be mentioned. It's an unfathomable amount. But I hold unforgiveness over my head for one particular sin- one measurable instance and in doing so, prevent the blessings of God's forgiveness in my own life. According to Psalm 32:1-2, people who are forgiven are blessed. So I can only assume that in being unforgiven, I have stolen my own blessings.

So it takes humility for me to accept God's forgiveness in preference of my own. It takes me placing my pride and my unforgiveness on the altar. They are ugly things to place there but I'd rather them there than on me! And when they are lifted off of me, I can shine like that lamp on the lampstand. And this time I'm not going to let Satan (or me) blow it out!

Sunrises and Such

I only have a minute but I've been thinking about this all day so hopefully I can get it right the first time!
Rod has been talking about a Eugene Peterson book called Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places for quite some time now. I haven't read it (yet) but I have been blessed by Rod reading it! One of the things he's taught me has been how God chose to teach us about himself. It is in creation that He placed us because this is the way He wants us to know him. We get life, this earth, His creation all for the purpose of learning who He is. There are so many songs out there that talk about us "not belonging here" and wishing our time here away--only to get to the other side- that's our goal. But that is just not what God had in mind. He had in mind that we would live life NOW and abundantly! There is purpose to our life. It's not an accident. Our world was not created by accident and it will not end by accident. An accidental life (for me) just doesn't seem worth living!

With all this in mind, I was so blessed the other morning as I drove our middle son to school and witnessed the most beautiful sunrise that I have ever seen! Now those of you who know me know that I'm not much of a morning person so you might think that me seeing any sunrise is a miracle! But when I was kid, I had a morning paper route and I saw more than the average number of sunrises for a kid. Anyway, it was just such a wonderful thing to look at that gorgeous artwork in the sky, feel God's smile, and know that He was just being there, all obvious and everything, just so I could know Him better.

My son, Will, is quite an artist. Seeing his quirky little drawings gives you a peek into his soul. It lets you see a part of him you could never know any other way. Seeing that sunrise and pondering the Artist behind it was the same way. Seeing the joy he must hold in his heart at the sight of a fresh day for each of us. A new opportunity for someone to know him better. Seeing the passion in the wild pinks and flame oranges. Knowing how passionately he pursues each of us. Seeing how he used all of his palette- knowing how detail-oriented he must be. How he must see even little me and desire that I enjoy him whole heartedly. What an inspiration for all of us, to reach back to him with the power and beauty and passion that he reaches out for us.

Will said, "Wow, Mom, I wish I could draw as well as God!" And I thought, "so do I, Will...so do I."

And Their Number Multiplied Daily

I got a comment immediately when I posted last night. It was a curious comment and I was a little puzzled by it. I had a pretty good idea what it meant, so, just to investigate, I followed the link back to the commenter's blog site. Although you could do the same, I don't recommend that you do!

I guess I'm just glad that there are more Christians talking about this kind of stuff on blogger and other such sites. I'm glad we can be iron sharpening iron. I'm glad we can encourage each other, lift each other up in our virtual community, and make unbelievers question. Even if it's only to question why on earth we Christians waste our time talking about this stupid stuff. Some people waste their time with their heads in toilets. I prefer to use mine in other ways. And as I do, I only pray that someone else like §å®å[¦]*&*TreeNaH comes along and stays long enough to see a little light.

Smelling Sin

I'm attempting to write this post now for the third time. Mostly it's just because I don't have time to think. But because of the pervasiveness of the subject, I find that I'm actually thinking about it all the time. So here goes the exercise of organizing my thoughts.

The subject is sin. "Oh no! Not again!" I hear you all say! Yes, again. This time it's triggered by a little book I'm reading called The Smell of Sin and the Fresh Air of Grace by Don Everts. The title intrigued me and it really is a little book so it didn't intimidate me!

I've wondered for years why I don't seem to know beforehand that I'm going to sin. The "big sins" like stealing and murdering... I mean... sure I would know I was about sin if I were about to engage in something like that but I don't do things like that so the whole issue is a little more cloudy for me. It seems that I sin and then I realize what I've done and then I kick myself for not seeing it beforehand so I could have prevented it. It's so totally defeating to me. But after studying this little book I've come up with a couple of reasons that I think this might happen.

After I sin and see the results of my selfish behavior, I am always sad, remorseful and occasionally repentant. It's at these times I cry out, "If only I had known what this action would have led to then I would have never done it!" But the curious thing is why didn't I see the potential repercussions of my sin? Most likely, it's because my behavior is so often focused only on me and seldom on others. (Ouch... that hurt!) But it's true, I must admit. I am frequently careless with my actions because I believe sin to be an annoyance, a silly rule that got broken, a failed attempt to walk a line that, to me, doesn't seem to have a purpose. My decision on whether or not to sin just doesn't seem to be extremely serious. I see it more as an inconvenience, a slip up, or even a struggle. But not a life or death situation.

Jesus didn't see sin this way. In all three of the synoptic gospels, Jesus says that it would be better for someone to have a millstone tied around their neck and be thrown into the sea than to cause someone else to sin (Matt. 18:6, Mark 9:42, & Luke 17:2). He also says it would be better to saw off your foot, pluck out your eye, or cut off your hand than to sin. Geesh! Why'd he take this stuff so seriously? I mean, we all fail; we all make mistakes! Come on! But that may just be his whole point.

We are all failures. Every last one of us. And the price for that is, according Jesus, "eternal fire". So if every last one of us took Jesus at his word, every last one of us would be at the bottom of Lake Murray (insert your own local body of water) with a cinder block tied around our necks. And then where would we be? No one to subdue the earth as God commanded; His beautiful creation destroyed by their own hands; the fellowship He created us for ablated. Jesus saw the hopelessness of this entire situation. He knew where we were headed. And he came to stop it once and for all. The problem is, we just don't see the problem!

Satan in all his cleverness has made sure that we see our sins as minor trifles, mere annoyances, minimal inconveniences. Most of us aren't murderers and can do fairly well (we think) with keeping those big 10 rules. But the problem is that the first time we think or behave selfishly, we've broken the first one and so whether or not we've ever murdered anyone becomes a mute point. But Satan makes sure that we don't see it that way. He covers our sins over with a pastel mist, breathing into our selfish hearts sentiments like, "Well, she deserved that" and "It really wasn't as bad as all that" and "It wouldn't have been fair to me if it had turned out the way it was headed!". And when you have pastel sins instead of blood red ones, there is really very little need for a Savior.

I believe Jesus. I believe He knew what He was doing when He allowed himself to be nailed to the cross. And if I believe all that, then I have to believe that sin is, as Jesus says, a life or death situation. It's serious. It's important, important enough for Him to suffer an agonizing, torture for me to be able to escape it. I look on the cross and I see a loving Father that understands the significance of my sin infinitely more than I do. And then I realize that my sin is not a mere inconvenience or minor annoyance. It's a slap in the face to a loving parent that sacrificed himself for me. It's like spitting in my mother's face when she greets me at the door with the scent of a holiday meal wafting from the kitchen where she has been toiling away in love. We have to understand what our sin is like, how it smells before we can take seriously its effects. I have to spiritually "blow my nose" so I can get rid of these satanic lies and learn to recognize the smell of sin. And once I know its stench it will be a lot easier to avoid.

Tissue and Nasonex anyone?

In Pursuit of Perfection

On Decemeber 1st I wrote about how disappointed I am in myself that I continually sin. On December 2nd, Oswald writes about what I'm supposed to do with that. How does he do that?

He instructs (as my wise husband has done so often) that it is a snare (a trap set by Satan himself) that I pursue "the manifestations of God in my life" rather than a relationship with God. It's what Rod calls the "trap of morality". I work and work and work at having the fruit of the Spirit. I strive to be sinless, to never make any mistake, to never hurt anyone's feelings, be late, or irresponsible. It's a call to an impossible life; it's a call to death. Exactly the opposite of the life Christ called me to.

Christian perfection is not, and never can be, human perfection. Christian perfection is the perfection of a relationship to God which shows itself amid the irrelevancies of human life.

-Oswald Chambers

To me, this translates that the impossible to acheive human perfection is not and should not be my goal. Instead, my goal must be a communion with God that is so close, so transparent, that all anyone who looks on it sees is God. Not only does that sound do-able but I long for it. I'm not saying that I have this all together, that I have it made. But I am well on my way, reaching out for Christ, who has so wondrously reached out for me. (Again, really, really thankful for Paul! -Philippians 3:12)

Body Part du Jour

If your hand or your foot causes you to sin, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to enter life maimed or crippled than to have two hands or two feet and be thrown into enternal fire
-Jesus

I can't do it. I fell asleep last night contemplating it and have sat at the table this morning trying to figure out how I could be brave enough to cut out my tongue. But unfortunately, the more I think about it, it would be my tongue today, my hand another day and my feet the day after that. What about my brain? What happens when it's time to cut that off?

And then I realized something (Ok, this isn't really the first time I've realized this-just the first time I've blogged it). It's not my tongue or my hands or my feet that cause me to sin. It's my nature. Jesus understood this. He knew I'd eventually get to the place where I'd realize how hopeless all this chopping off of body parts is. This is where I crucify my nature on the cross of Calvary- but that seems to be more nice, neat, Christianese for something I can't do. I think it would be easier to cut out my tongue.

I can't stop sinning. I've tried. I keep trying. I keep failing. I sound like Paul. I've been here with him before. So I know where to start reading. Romans 8:1.

Thanks, Paul. I needed that.