I’ve been thinking about sin a lot lately. One of my sisters is going through a difficult time in her marriage. Her husband is choosing to remain in sin, even though he has been confronted with it by her, their pastor, and his mother. Unless he responds with some very specific behavioral changes and accountability to their pastor, legal separation will be the next step. I have been so angry with him. You see, his choice to sin doesn’t just affect himself. It affects my sister and her children, and those of us who love them.
My self-righteousness would like to dwell on my frustration with my brother-in-law for a while and then move on. But the Holy Spirit won’t let me. Because my sins, the sins of gluttony and poor stewardship of the body God has given me, don’t just affect myself. They affect my entire family by making me too tired to play with my kids, too crabby to be kind to by husband, too exhausted to take proper care of our home. And bigger picture: my continuing in these sins could actually take me away from my family. As Blest said, “Rubber…meet road.”
After reading that post from Blest last night, I was angry. Not at Blest - angry at myself. I haven’t been feeling well this last week and so have not been disciplined. I have chosen to comfort myself in food rather than in the Lord. I have chosen to wallow in self-pity instead of humbling myself in repentance. And my choices have consequences to myself and to my family.
After logging off the computer last night, I came across this in my quiet time (I do my Bible reading and study at night):
“People often think of Christian morality as a kind of bargain in which God says, ‘If you keep a lot of rules I’ll reward you, and if you don’t I’ll do the other thing.’ I do not think that is the best way of looking at it. I would much rather say that every time you make a choice you are turning the central part of you, the part of you that chooses, into something a little different from what it was before. And taking your life as a whole, with all your innumerable choices, all your life long you are slowly turning this central thing either into a heavenly creature or into a hellish creature: either into a creature that is in harmony with God, and with other creatures, and with itself, or into one that is in a state of war and hatred with God, and with its fellow-creatures, and with itself. To be the one kind of creature is heaven: that is, it is joy and peace and knowledge and power. To be the other means madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Each of us at each moment is progressing to the one state or the other.”
C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity
Today I will be faced with many choices - especially since I’m going grocery shopping! I want those choices to take me closer to being a heavenly creature, not the other. Joy, peace, knowledge, and power on one hand. On the other: madness, horror, idiocy, rage, impotence, and eternal loneliness. Sounds like a pretty clear choice, doesn’t it?
Wow. Good stuff, Carrie. Really good stuff. “madness, horror, idiocy, rage. impotence, and eternal loneliness”…Oh yeah. I’ve been there.
Thanks for the reminder. I’m glad you’re here! And I’ll pray for your sister. I always want to fix situations like that with a baseball bat, don’t you?
Comment by blestwithsons — August 15, 2006 @ 8:43 am
Excellent post, Carrie. Much to chew on and ponder over.
Comment by lady laura — August 15, 2006 @ 9:16 am