Soma

It’s been an interesting week.  At just about every turn, I seem to be needing to repent, apologize, and ask for forgiveness.  In fact, I think that since Sunday I have had to ask for forgiveness from just about every one of the people closest to me.  And all for different reasons!  I’m tempted to chalk it up to a rough week, and me just being a little extra sinful, but I think that’s a little too simple.  The truth is, I don’t think I’ve been all that more sinful this week than other weeks, I’ve just been more sensitive to my sin and actually sought to remedy it instead of cover it up, or pretend it’s not there.  I seem to be really good at emphasizing my godly motives for things while hiding my sinful and selfish motives.  I guess Jeremiah got it right (17:9):

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?

But, in light of the gospel, I’ve been realizing how foolish it is to pretend that I’m not the sinner that I am.  I, too, desperately need God’s continuing grace.  Honestly, it’s been kind of embarrassing.  Even with someone who knows me as well as my wife, it’s not all that easy to confess, repent and depend on her to forgive me.  But, it sure is sweet to receive forgiveness and to know that I am forgiven in that exact same way by God.

One of the things that has prompted me in this direction and helped to expose the sin in my heart has been a section I came across in a book I’m reading by Stuart Scott (not this one, this one).  In regards to relationships (all kinds of relationships) there are a number of pitfalls that we all have a propensity to fall into.  Reading this section felt like reading a list of my shortcomings in many of my relationships.  The five pitfalls he lists are:

1. Not Pursuing Christ First and Foremost
2. Pride (self-exalting pride and self-centered pride)
3. Sinful Communication
4. A Lack of Appreciation and Thankfulness
5. Self-focused Expectations

Perhaps this list will cause you to think through your own heart and motives in your relationships.  If it does, I hope God embarassingly reveals the sin in your heart and humbles you, as He continues to do me.  And I pray that that embarassment does not lead to despair, but to humble trust in the infinite grace of our incredible God who is “slow to anger and abounding in loving-kindness.”