Tag: forgiveness

Kingdom Living

THE “S” WORD

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Listen up! I don’t like it any more than you do. I sure don’t like to say it. I mean, people stare at you with perked up ears and gasping jaws. No one wants to make eye contact, that’s for sure. Their glances from behind their phones and sunglasses are sly and they look away quickly before you can catch them sizing you up.  I mean, you just said the “s” word and that makes all interactions with the people around you AWK-WARD. Yep, super awkward. If your eyes do meet, chances are you’ll want to talk about it with them. Yep, there’s lots of things they’d rather do than talk about the “s” word with a stranger and especially not with you as their friend.

Why is the “s” word so taboo? We hardly even talk about it at church. I mean, it’s in the Bible. Jesus said it.

The trouble with the “s” word is that it makes us have to confront our flesh. It means that we have to look in the mirror and realize that what we comfort ourself with, make excuses for, laugh about or entertain is what Jesus died for. It’s what he took upon his broken and beaten body. It’s what separated him from the Father for those minutes that seemed like eons. It’s what fell on Jesus with such depth that he cried out to the Father, “Why have you forsaken me?” That’s how far away God the Father felt to Jesus on the cross while he was bearing it for all of us. It’s serious. It’s not a cute saying for a t-shirt or our reward for putting up with our kids all day. It’s what the Bible calls SIN.

Now, the good news is that once we confess that sin we are forgiven. God forgets about it. The tricky part is sometimes we don’t. Our flesh craves what we have tried to give up. You know, and sometimes we have wonky thinking like, “God is quick to forgive so we might as well keep doing it.” In our earthly small mindedness, we can’t seem to grasp the depth of the problem of our sin.

There are a few issues with sin, specifically perpetual sin, unrepented sin, sin that we refuse to acknowledge and turn from. This type of sin has the potential to be a place where the enemy can stick his big ol’ foot in the door. He just needs a tiny opening. He just needs a place where we are out of alignment with the Father to have legal access to harass us. Sure, maybe he’s barely noticeable right now. You’re still leading that group at church, you still smile at the drive thru worker, you still read your Bible and hold your hands up high during worship. But that little sin can turn into something bigger until the foothold that the enemy has in your life begins to affect not just you but those around you.

Hmmmm, then what? The t-shirt isn’t so cute anymore. The binge watching of the raunchy TV show isn’t so innocent. The reward of “just letting loose” doesn’t seem like much of a reward when your children and family are now battling the enemy that you allowed to come live in your house. Sin is no longer a little diversion for you but has become an albatross content to take you, your children, and your spouse down with it.

God takes sin serious, ya’ll. He forgives. He forgets. He provided a way of victory from the entanglement of it in our life through Jesus. But we have to submit to the conviction and receive the grace offered to us. We have to stop say “Nope, that’s not sin.” We have to submit to the gentle correction of the Holy Spirit.

One of my favorite scriptures about sin is Psalm 119:133. (And yes, I realize how weird that is to have a favorite scripture about sin.) “Direct my footsteps according to your word; let no sin rule over me.”

Let no sin rule over me. Let no sin have any power over me. Let no sin dictate what my flesh is going to do. Let no sin be more attractive than what you direct in your word. Let no sin be the boss of me or my family. Let no sin open the door to the enemy in my life. Let no sin render me powerless under it’s grip. Let no sin influence me. Let no sin overpower your direction. Let no sin sway me off the path that you have for me. Let no sin draw me closer to the enemy of my soul than the lover of my soul.

Amen

 

out of focus lights on rainy weather
Taking thoughts captive

AUTO-CORRECT

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My name is Amy Cravey.  Yes, I know. It sounds a little like “crazy” and can be confused with “gravy.” In fact, my father-in-law suggested naming our daughter Biscuits Ann so that she would have a yummy, southern name.  I didn’t go for it, obviously.  

However, the mail I get shows that people just can’t process the name “Cravey” for some reason. I get mail addressed to the “Carvey Family.” They sound like a nice family. Sometimes it comes to the “Crarey’s,” which is about as confusing as “Cravey.”  I have just gotten used to always spelling my name. C-R-A-V as in Victor-E-Y. And inevitably the person I am spelling it to gets a quirky smile on their face. 

It’s at that moment that I know even though I carefully spelled my name, they auto-corrected in their mind. I know, I spelled it out, but they heard “CRAZY” and they typed it in that way too. Their minds reverted to what they “thought” they heard, not what I actually said.  If I had a dollar for every time this has happened–well, you know. BUT it happens. Over and over it happens. 

You know we do that in other areas of our lives, too.  For example, when stress hits hard, we might revert back to old eating habits even though we have faithfully been munching on lentils and carrots for 6 months. When scary diagnoses are spoken, the fear rises, even though we say we trust the Lord with our life. We auto-correct to what we used to know, what we think we know, or how we think our reactions should play out. 

Have you ever been in a situation where someone is just confidently calm in the midst of chaos? Every bit of them is just operating against what the circumstances seem to dictate. They did NOT auto-correct. They weren’t swayed by their emotions or memories or previous triggers. They just stood. Grounded.

The Bible tells us in Romans 12: “Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is–his good, pleasing and perfect will.” 

So, here we go. One way to not auto-correct in situations and events that might be less than fabulous in our lives is the daily discipline of renewing our minds. What does that mean? Good stuff in and bad stuff out! If you’re wallowing in all the doom and gloom, then your reaction is going to be doom and gloom. If you’re filling your mind with the good stuff, it’s going to be so much harder to auto-correct to doom and gloom when your life gets jiggled around.  

Ephesians 4:31-32 says “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”  

Making a habit of forgiving and releasing people who hurt you lessens the chance that you cling to offense and, in return, poison yourself.  And boy oh boy, we sure think we are entitled to hold onto grudges and judgments against others. Heads up, buttercup– holding onto offense doesn’t give us power. It sucks the life out of us! It’s like drinking poison and thinking it will hurt our offender. Stop it.

Auto-correcting to our fleshly responses never ends well. And it’s hard! It’s soooo hard to practice daily the renewing of our minds and the releasing of our offenses. But I don’t want to be known as the person who overreacts when trouble comes. I don’t want to feel wobbly and unstable when fear tries to creep in. I don’t want to fly off the handle in a barrage of rambling words when I feel judged or pressured.  I don’t want to auto-correct to “CRAZY.” I don’t! 

And I don’t want you to auto-correct to what you used to know, what you think you know or how you think your reactions should play out. Join me. Practice renewing and releasing. Let’s put an end to our auto-correct kind of life and embrace peace, confidence and security in knowing our reactions are grounded in Christ and not influenced by things we have already put behind us.