{Don't} Let Fear Paralyze You

While I was in college, I was a contributor to a blog—started by Moody Publishing for millennials—for about a year. The blog ended up changing its name and web address, and eventually the old domain expired…so the posts I authored now exist only on my computer [yes, I keep *everything*!!]. But occasionally I will be reminded of something I wrote and go back and look at it.

That happened recently with a post that was originally published on Thrive80 in April of 2012. The editor team had asked us to contribute posts about hypothetical ways to ruin your life before the age of 30. Below is what I wrote – with a current postscript at the end! :D It’s a message that spoke to my heart again today, even though I’m now in a different stage of life than I was as a 2^nd semester junior.

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There are so many options available of what we can do with our lives.  This is especially true for our generation.  We have grown up in a world where travelling to another country is something that is not all that unusual, where we are told that we can be whatever we want to be.

Boys and girls both have increasingly equal chances to pursue whatever course they desire in their lives.  Our current president has demonstrated that the color of one’s skin can no longer effectively bar one from even the highest office in the land. [Remember this was originally written in 2012!] Freed from the constraints of comparative financial and physical limitations, the vast majority of our generation of Americans is free to chase and reach their dreams.

But there is one thing that can quickly and easily destroy any chance we have of achieving our goals:

FEAR

The fear of not making the right choice.  The fear of things not working out the way I want them to.  The fear that no matter how hard I try, it won’t be good enough.  The fear that God’s plan will be different than mine and ruin what I seek.

Such fear can paralyze us, preventing us from doing anything productive.  It can wrap its chains around our hearts and weigh us down.  Allowing this fear to overtake us is exactly what the enemy would love to see.  When Christians are bound by fear, they will not take the risks or chances that could lead them to victory in their lives or to bring God glory.

Not giving fear a foothold in my life is something I have been learning a lot about both last summer and this month.  As a person who wants people to like me and who wants to always make exactly the right choices, I can tend to hesitate too long in doing something important with my life – fearing rejection, fearing the unknown. 

But God does not call us to fear.  He calls us to hope and trust.  He calls us to live with our all on the line, to pursue Him whole-heartedly no matter what might happen.  It is then that He will gladly pour out His blessings on us and give us the desires of our hearts (Ps. 37:4, 1 Pet. 5:6-7).

Last summer, God kept bringing me back to the verse in 1 John which tells us that perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves torment (4:18).  There is no reason for us to fear the future, because God loves us.  When we do fear, it is a signal that we are not yet fully willing to trust God with all that we are.  And yet, because He loves us so much, He consistently and patiently points us back to Him.  “Trust Me, My child,” He whispers, “I love you more than you can even love yourself.”

Earlier this month, I was in a place of inner turmoil and doubt.  There was something I sensed God was calling me to, but everything within me was frightened of what would happen if I did it.  On Good Friday, I was able to spend a large chunk of time outside, away from the distractions of everyday life.  In that time, God used the feelings I was struggling with to bring me back to this idea of fear.  He did this through a part of Scripture I had memorized years ago.

In James 4:13-16, the author is criticizing people who go to the opposite extreme of the problem I am talking about here.  Those folks assume that they do know exactly what will happen.  They make plans and are overly confident that they will achieve their goals.  James reminds his readers that the fact is that we don’t know what will happen.  Our life is a vapor.  “Instead,” he concludes, “you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we shall live and do this or that.’”

He is calling these people to live their lives in a manner which is surrendered to God’s plan for their lives.  He is calling them to trust.  But an important point here is that James does not say we should walk around in fear.  [Neither does he] say “Sit still in your house until you know exactly what it is God has planned for you to do because otherwise you will be a failure.”  No!  Rather, he is simply cautioning that while we can make our plans, we should not presumptuously assume that things will come out just as we expect.

James then turns and equally chastises the people who are too bound by fear.  “Therefore,” he writes, “to him who knows to do good and does not do it, to him it is sin” (4:17).  God does allow us a level of free will!  I’m not going to try to debate this large theological issue, but suffice it to say I do not believe in a deterministic view of God’s sovereignty.  I believe He leaves room for human choice and plans.

James’ last verse here is telling us to do what we know we should.  Follow through on applying for that job, even if you’re not sure how it will work out.  Try to make friends with that person you see sitting alone, despite the fact they may choose to ignore you.  Love freely, as you have been loved – even when that can open you up to hurt and disappointment.

Thinking through this passage in James brought me back to something that has been a recurring theme of my college career: that life issues rarely fit into neat categories.  Instead, as Aristotle’s theory of the golden mean describes, the ideal course of action typically lies in finding a balance between two extreme responses.  As I tweeted shortly after my time of reflection, “I am called to trust - not to either fear that God may change my plans, nor to presume that He will not.”

And so, my friends, there is one word that can prevent you from letting fear ruin your life and paralyze you.  It may be a simple word, but the concept is deep – one which God has been slowly developing in my life for months:

TRUST

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Interestingly, God has continued to use that passage from James in my life, without me consciously remembering this post I wrote. In October of 2015, I was praying about whether God would have me commit to coming back to Uganda after my initial 14-month stint as staff was over. Again, I was out in nature spending time communing with Him. And as I prayed, He gave me those same verses in James.

And so they’ve stayed in the back of my mind – as I said that yes, I would return to Uganda. As I renewed my work permit in early 2016 for two years. As I think about the future now. Those are the verses that my mind goes back to. I can make my plans, but God may change them at any time. And yes, that’s scary—IF I forget how faithful and trustworthy God is. IF I ignore the fact that He knows things I can’t even imagine. IF I don’t remember that His purposes are perfect.

The word that is the call to my heart is still the same now as it was five years ago:

TRUST.

Joining Him on the Way

“Let’s get started – when the others come they will find us on the way.”

I don’t know how many times I have heard this at informal Kasana gatherings/meetings over the past year. Probably at least half a dozen.

It’s a common sentiment, stemming from “African time” – the tendency of Ugandans and others to not be on time. If you’re at a place within 15 minutes of the assigned beginning time, usually you are early. ;) At functions out in the village, if the stated start time is 10 a.m., that may be when you leave your garden to go home and bathe before walking to the meeting – you may get there at 11 and still be one of the first.

On Tuesday night I attended Vespers, an occasional evening service that gives JBU students time to quietly reflect on passages of Scripture which they read aloud together. It was the students who slipped in a minute or two late to join the other students which made me think of my Ugandan friends.

Somehow then, my mind made a jump to spiritual matters. The thought flashed through my mind that this is what every one of us has done. God started history thousands of years ago. Every one of us living now have found Him on the way. He has been working His plan and accomplishing His goals for centuries and millennia before our parents (or great great great great grandparents) ever thought of our existence. We all find Him on the way.

I couldn’t help but think a bit about what that means.

To go back to the illustration that started this train of thought: Imagine that the meeting is one discussing an elaborate plan for how to celebrate someone’s birthday. Then imagine that the person arriving over an hour after the official start of the meeting suddenly jumps in and starts expressing her ideas about what ought to be done and how to do it. If the meeting has been productive (also a Western concept – the first phase of a less formal meeting in Uganda can often be visiting and catching up on one another’s lives), then plans have quite possibly already been made – it’s just the details remaining.

I think it is easy for us humans to do something similar on the grander spiritual scale. As we grow up, we start to have our own ideas about things. By the time we are adults, we can have grand plans and Opinions about the way things ought to be.

We feel like we are responsible for coming up with what we do and what happens around us.

We forget that we joined Someone else on the way.

That He has His plans & will carry them out!

That HE is the one writing the story.

That it’s HIS story anyway.

Zachariah, Elizabeth, Mary, Joseph, Simeon, Anna: Each one of them didn’t just find God on the way – they were caught up into a plan grander than anything they could have imagined. Some had to be made to shut up so that they would listen to the plan. Others accepted it with open arms, though I’m sure they were blown away by the enormity of what they were hearing. Each one didn’t set out to make something amazing of their lives; or maybe they did, but it paled in comparison to what actually happened. Instead, they were invited to join what God was already at work doing. They didn’t just find Him on the way, He met them on the way and changed the course of their lives, and human history, FOREVER.

Obviously, I don’t believe there will ever be something exactly like that again. Never again will the eternal, omnipresent Son of God choose to fully become a helpless baby. But I think we can still learn something from this.

On a much more personal note, being here in Siloam has made me think about the “me” that first moved here more than six years ago. An Esther that thought she was going to be a political journalist. NEVER did that Esther expect that six years later she would be looking at Uganda, a distant country in Eastern Africa, as HOME for the foreseeable future. I had no idea what God was going to do. But He invited me to join Him on the way; He worked so many different things together in my life to grow me and stretch me and envision me for something that I in myself would never have seen.

He has a plan that He put into motion thousands and thousands of years ago. Each one of us finds Him on the way. But not because we were looking for Him – He finds us and calls us to join Him on THE WAY. Because it’s definitely not a journey we walk alone. We have the Godhead, each person of the Trinity, willing and eager to walk with us and guide us each step of the way. For Jesus said that He IS the way, the truth, and the life.

Come, let’s join Him on the way.

An {Uninspired} Psalm

{Uncle George, one of our Institute teachers, encouraged us yesterday to think about/write a psalm praising the Lord to share with class this morning. So here is a small offering of worship to my King, Savior, & Advocate. A few of my lines are direct quotes or "Esther paraphrases" of Scripture verses, as I'm sure you will notice.}

O God, You are my God.

                You are the faithful One,
                Regardless my wandering heart.

You are the all-seeing One,

Even when I try to hide myself.

                Eternally Existent

                        Self-Sufficient
                                Magnificent Creator
                                        Holy in Righteousness
                                                This is our God.

Yet Christ came, for the glory of His Father:
        Born of a woman, born under the law,
        Bound into the confines of an earthly body;
        Subject to the temptations of humanity,
        In all things as we were, yet without sin;
        You laid down Your life to redeem sinners,
        To show us the Father and bring us into adoption;
        Creator God, Come as a humble Servant
                And crucified;
        Oh my Savior, such a mystery I cannot comprehend.

And when You ascended in glory,
You did not leave us alone.
        You gave us Your Holy Spirit:
                Paraclete, our Advocate and Helper.
He lives within our hearts.

O Triune God, I pray:
        Give me eyes to see;
        ears to hear;
        and a heart which seeks after You;
That my mouth may declare Your glory alone.

To Walk Humbly

A little over a year ago, I took part in a labyrinth walk as part of the “Capstone” class at JBU. My intention of posting my writings from that class on this blog failed after about a month…but I wanted to go back and post the response I was asked to write about the labyrinth walk (edited a bit). This is because a couple weeks ago God put together several puzzle pieces in my life, including this experience from last March. To read more about the picture I saw take shape from the pieces, check out this post on my other blog.

A bit of background: The Capstone class primarily looked at six “streams” or traditions of Christian history/practice.[1] I’ll have to do a post some time with a bit about those. As part of our examinations into these types of orthopraxy,[2] we also had speakers come in or outside experiences. The latter included the labyrinth walk.

Labyrinth response                        written March 6, 2013

                I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from the labyrinth experience. To be honest, I was apprehensively looking forward to it. {The apprehension part came from preconceptions I had and opinions I had heard expressed about such things.}

                I am really glad you {Dr. Burch – a great teacher!} went over the idea of the labyrinth some on Wednesday before we went out there {on Sunday, March 3}. I had expected it to be more structured, for Ben Hill {the homeowner who had built a labyrinth in his yard} to give us more specific “how to” suggestions so we would do it the right way. Of course, looking back, I realize that idea deals with one of my misconceptions…that things such as this are some sort of magic charm that you go through the right steps and get the perfect result. It makes sense that he did not give us specific guidelines, because this is more of a personal experience. At the same time, I appreciated the basic suggestion you had given us about going in with our hands closed and coming out with them open.

                Going into the experience, I had a good bit on my mind. On Thursday, I had a very low-point, sad experience and a more exciting, happy occurrence. With the former, there were questions of “why did this have to happen this way???” and with the latter, there were questions of “how will this application turn out? Will I get the internship that seems so perfect to me?” I knew that in both, God had a plan and had His reasons, even if I couldn’t see or understand them. But I always tend to question why—I always want to know what it is that will happen.

                So that’s what I was holding onto as I entered the labyrinth. God has been asking me a simple question over and over throughout the past year and a half or so: “Do you trust Me?” Usually my mind jumps to the “yes” answer, and then I try to align my emotions to that truth. But at other times I honestly have to say “no,” and then try to surrender whatever it is that I am trying to hold onto control of.

During the first few minutes {of the labyrinth walk} I was thinking through all of that. Then a verse “just happened” to pop into my mind: “What does the Lord require of you? But to do justice, to love mercy, and to walk humbly before your God” (the Esther paraphrase). My mind latched onto the “walk humbly” bit, wondering what that really meant in practicality. I continued thinking about other things, and then suddenly right as I was making one of the turns I nearly stood stock still – because the truth of that really struck me.

Thinking that I deserve to know why things happen the way they do—or wanting so badly to know what will happen ahead of time—is a sign of pride. God calls us to walk humbly before Him – that includes trusting Him and surrendering our “right” to know why and our ideal plans and dreams.

For most of the rest of the walk in, I was reflecting on that and confessing the sin of pride that I hadn’t really recognized before then. In the center—and then coming back out—I mostly prayed for the willingness to learn more of Christ’s humility. And I was able to just spend some time worshipping too, singing songs of praise in my mind. As I neared the exit, another thought came… “This is not the end goal, this is simply the preparation.” The fact is, I don’t know what’s going to happen in my life. What I do know is that God is transforming me to fulfill His purposes. And I truly am thankful that He’s the one in charge of all that and not me!

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So so true! And still such a lesson I need to be taken back to and reminded of over and over again….

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[1] The six, in the order we covered them in class, are: Contemplative {think monks/meditation}, Holiness {think Methodists}, Charismatic {obvious}, Social Justice {think “liberal”…to some extent}, Evangelical {what I considered “the best”/“mainstream” five years ago}, and Incarnational {think Episcopal}.

[2] “Orthopraxy” has to do with what a group of people views as correct religious practices. It can be compared/contrasted with “orthodoxy” – what a group of people views as correct religious beliefs.

Jan. 14 CQI - Personality's role in spirituality (Mul. ch. 5-6)

Claim 1: Mulholland argues (p. 50) that individual Christians are unable to achieve holistic spiritual health on their own, apart from active participation in the corporate body of Christ. This makes perfect sense to me logically, but as a super strong introvert, I tend to attempt just that – to look for everything I need within myself rather than being willing to rely on the (sometimes undependable) help of others. If I open myself up to relying on others, I am no longer in complete control (oh, there comes the judgment part!! [see "question 1" below]), and that is not comfortable for me.

Claim 2: People tend to begin viewing their personal preferences as the best or only way of going about things (p. 55; ch. 6). This is definitely true of me…. I think it is partly because people like me don’t want to admit our own weaknesses. If we recognize the value in other ways of doing things, it could potentially open the door to needing to be willing to be flexible in how we typically act and make choices. And that’s not always fun! Which leads right into the whole shadow thing he talks about.

Question 1: How much of me is the way it is because of how I was raised? Who am I really? (p. 62) I know I’m a super strong “I” and a strong “J,” but it is much harder for me to figure out if I’m an N/S or an F/T. I can see myself going both ways on both of them, and from some of the reading we did in this chapter I would keep flip flopping on what I think my natural self likes most. It’s hard to figure out how much of the way I practically approach these two is nature vs. nurture. (see below for more on this)

Insight 1: From the description on pg. 52, I had put myself down as an F because of the “need to please others” bit, even though my test results from the night before had put me as a T. But then I got to pg. 58, and his description of thinking people’s tendency to be “more ‘theological,’ more analytical and structural in their spirituality” fit me….well…to a “T.” As I’m sure I’ll talk about in my “Here I am” paper for Wednesday, my relationship with God in high school was definitely “slight[ing] the affective, emotional aspects of [my] relationship with God,” even though I felt a deep need and hunger for that. It’s like I was missing something and didn’t know how to fill the void I felt (see also pg. 60).

Insight 2: The “disintegration” of my one-sided spirituality between my thinking and feeling tendencies definitely led to some stagnation (pg. 63), as mentioned above. I was a super good kid – I memorized multiple whole books of the Bible for Bible Quizzing, knew a lot of the “right answers” about theology, read my Bible cover to cover when I was 11-12 years old, etc. But it was all a façade – It covered up a heart that was so hungry for a real relationship. I was dying of starvation for the feelings of love. I knew with my head that God loved me. The thinking side of me had that box clearly checked off. But I guess I was trying to sweep the feeling cravings under the rug – like I didn’t think that’s what a relationship with God was supposed to/could include. Until that day when God in His GRACE unexplainedly reached down and began pouring out His love into my life – but you’ll have to wait until Wednesday to read more about that.  :D

Anyway, going back up to the question I had earlier….I think a big part of this whole issue was that I was raised in a very conservative family that was not at all comfortable with the more charismatic practices of Christianity. The active, personal experience of God’s love and presence was mostly lacking from my life before I came to college. I think that’s because the kind of experiences I’ve had since are kind of scary to people who are trying to fit God into a system of boxes. It doesn’t feel safe to have emotional, affective experiences. And so we avoided them. There are still times I’m not sure what to do with certain things about charismatic practices. But I just keep praying to God that He would guide me into what is true of HIM – that my spirituality would not try to keep Him in some artificial box, but also that I would not start practicing in ways that are not true to His character. Sometimes all I can do is trust Him to be faithful to not allow a heart yearning for Him to go astray.

Capstone Seminar in Christian Life

I've never kept this blog as updated as I intended to (that's the story of the life of all my poor blogs...). But now that I'm in my last semester, I think I have a class in which I actually care deeply enough about what it is that I'm writing to post it so others can read it and perhaps be helped or blessed.

At John Brown University, "Capstone Seminar in Christian Life" is a senior-level course which all students are required to take. It is the bookend at the end of our college experience which is supposed to prepare us to be launched into the world.

I got credit for it by taking an honors course which integrates two upper division core requirements into one, two-semester class. But it naturally wasn't exactly the same. Then last fall I got to know Dr. Burch a little bit through working in the Biblical Studies Division (I also heard him speak at the student retreat in September), and I really wanted to take a class with him. It's hard to explain why - he just comes across as a very caring, very intelligent, but very down-to-earth guy. 

This semester he is teaching Capstone, and I had a few extra hours lying around in my last semester, so I decided to audit the class. Last Wednesday we had our first day, and I have never been more excited about a class in my life. Dr. Burch is going to be providing an opportunity for us to carefully and intentionally examine our spiritual lives and the journey we have been on and to look toward where we want/need to go. He's going to be having us do a lot of reflection, and I love that kind of stuff.

Anyhow, nearly every class period we will be turning in what he calls CQI's (Claims, Questions, Insights) over the reading for that day. Our reading will primarily come from Invitation to a Journey: A Road Map for Spiritual Formation by Robert Mulholland. And I am hoping/planning to post those on here. We'll see how it goes :)

HO Week 6 (9/30) - Calling

The Audience of One

Bucking the crowd. Marching to the beat of a different drum. Swimming upstream. These are metaphors I find myself identifying with on a regular basis. I’m not an average American 21-year-old (after all, I only joined the 21 club last Sunday). I wasn’t a typical high school teenager either. In Rising to the Call, Os Guinness encourages Christians to live and perform for an audience of one. So I’m on the right track, right?

Wrong. At least, not necessarily right. There are many audiences that the world encourages us to try to please. But the one I want to focus on here is the deceptive audience of one: myself. It’s fairly easy for me to be a maverick and proud of it. However, doing my own thing for the sake of doing my own thing isn’t where I want to be—because if I’m doing my own thing, my focus is off.

The audience of one is not me. The Audience of One is God.

Read that again, Esther. Read it again. {Big sigh} It’s not too difficult for me to do what I want to do, regardless of what other people are doing. What is much more challenging is doing what God wants me to do, regardless of what I want to do. Here I am, back to the same place God keeps bringing me this month: SURRENDER.

I may think I have my life all figured out. But at the end of the day, I am not my most important audience. God is. And when someday the curtain closes on the story of my life, I don’t want my own applause to be the only sound I hear. If there’s only one person clapping, that’s just fine…so long as that person is my Heavenly Father – the true Audience of One.

HO Week 5 (9/23) - Calling

Service vs. Devotion

“Beware of anything that competes with loyalty to Jesus Christ. The greatest competitor of devotion to Jesus is service for Him….The one aim of the call of God is the satisfaction of God, not a call to do something for Him.” ~~~Oswald Chambers

When I read this quote in Os Guinness’ “Rising to the Call” a lightbulb went off in my head unlike either of the other two times I’ve read the book. This quote is applicable to me because it’s a huge temptation of mine to easily get so carried away “serving God” that I have no time simply to be His as my room mate says.

This really dawned on me for the first time last January, I think on one of the days Jill Briscoe came to speak in chapel. Standing there singing, it suddenly dawned on me that there is never never anything I can do to earn my salvation. I shouldn’t try to earn God’s love, because it is a free gift! Everything I do should be a response of love and thankfulness, but not out of a sense of indebtedness. God doesn’t want my good deeds. He wants ME!

It’s super easy for us as college students to get caught up and to busy serving God. It goes back to that article “Human Flourishing” we read the first week. In fact, this issue is my biggest disagreement with that article. There are so many good opportunities for us to serve – especially at a Christian college like JBU. But our number one goal is to be fully Christ’s. We shouldn’t assume our good deeds earn our favor with God when what He’s really looking for is our hearts, yielded to Him.

HO Week 4 (9/16) - Calling

The Story of My Life

Anabel stared up at the mountain peak, just one of a whole range stretching as far as she could see. For days, this view had been on her horizon—threatening her goal by blocking her path. It was as though the mountains knew exactly what she wanted and were laughing at their ability to keep her from attaining it. How long ago had she started on this journey? The weeks and months of toil were blending together…and now suddenly it seemed to be at an end, here at the foot of an insurmountable obstacle.

Each one of us has ambitions. Each has a journey which has brought us to where we now stand. But we rarely see our lives like we see stories. Stories have meaning in every moment—there is rarely a wasted scene in a book or a movie. Thus, we look at our day-to-day existence and think it’s boring. This is the idea Donald Miller wrote A Million Miles in a Thousand Years to combat.

At the risk of sounding “over-saved,” I can honestly say that my main pursuit in life at this moment is to live the life God would have me to live. I know that the best life I could ever live is the one God has planned out for me. He has been reminding me all year that I can trust Him. Sure, I have ideas of the things I would like to do. But if they’re not in God’s plan, He’s teaching me that I can lay them down on the altar. He is my Master, I am His slave.

My life is a conglomeration of many typical story plots…and some which are very unusual. I’ve been impacted by the “good kid from a Christian family” story – the “homeschooled” story – the “love nature & the outdoors” story – the “mid-income, non-extravagant lifestyle” story. Those don’t make me too unique…but then there’s the “I lived in China with my family for seven months when I was in 6^th grade” story. While it was a long time ago…while I was rather young…while I don’t think about it every day…still, this story has had a huge impact on me. God uses all of the stories He has written into each person’s life to create a book that is beautiful, special, and unique. I can trust Him, knowing that each piece of the puzzle that is “me” fits together to create a picture of the “me” He has had in mind from eternity past.

Classifying Sins: Pets or Monsters?

We humans can be very inconsistent creatures. We like to think that we have things all figured out and are always reasonable……but we most certainly don’t and aren’t. I was thinking about this while making lunch today. What brought it to mind was thinking about how we inadvertently and perhaps unconsciously classify and think about sin/sins. Everybody has at least two classes into which they group types of faults: pets and monsters. {In this post, I use “we” because I think everyone does this. But each of us as individuals has our own pets and monsters.}

Pet sins are those ones that I might admit I do but that I make excuses for or try to explain away. They’re like my pet bird Bluebonnet. As I was trying to type the first part of this post, he was running around on the keyboard, playing with my fingers and wanting me to pay attention to him and give him kisses. Sometimes our pets can be so very annoying! Sometimes we may even despise them. But other times we love them and anything they do seems cute.

Now to the monsters. This group is for those sins we always recognize as horrible—the things that we would never never do, try to avoid at all costs, and are always quick to judge others for doing. Things like (in my upbringing) getting drunk, gambling, murder, adultery, etc. We view this class of sins as horrible villains, like Voldemort in the Harry Potter series, Sauron in the Lord of the Rings, or any other classic nemesis—things that are clearly evil, non-negotiable and unacceptable.

This system can be very comfortable for us. It can make us feel good and self-righteous. There’s just one small problem with it: God doesn’t see sin that way. He doesn’t acknowledge or identify with our classification scheme. To God, ALL sins are EQUALLY reprehensible and disgusting.

I can be standing where I am critically judging a fellow brother or sister in Christ because they choose to buy a lottery ticket, drink or go clubbing. At that moment, what I am failing to recognize is that I have equally atrocious sins which I have grown to accept in my own life – be it gluttony, gossiping or harbored anger. Each of us has villainous sins in our life—horrible addictions which we have come to see as cute little pets. What’s even worse is when I despise others for the very things I am myself guilty of doing.

Hmm….this concept reminds me of a Bible verse! In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said: “Do not judge, or you too will be judged. For in the same way you judge others, you will be judged, and with the measure you use, it will be measured to you. Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? How can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when all the time there is a plank in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the plank out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to remove the speck from your brother’s eye” Matthew 7:1-5, NIV (emphasis mine).

There’s also this: Some things like gambling are not mentioned or directly prohibited in the Bible. So on what basis have “good Christians” made these activities such a marker for judging others???? Gambling may be unwise and a poor use of the money which God has given me to be a steward of, but so is spending all my money on food or entertainment. Although we see it as such a “bad” thing to do, it’s not listed in the Ten Commandments. But honoring my parents is, and so is coveting. Have I ever dishonored my parents? Definitely. Have I ever been envious of what others have? You betcha I have. If I can’t even fulfill the ten most basic rules God gave men to govern their lives, what business have I to criticize others so strongly for their faults?

This has been a convicting post for me to write. I don’t always choose to remember how serious my sins and faults are. I much prefer keeping my pets. But when I take a step back and remember how God sees my sin—just as evil as the monsters I judge others for—it makes me feel quite ashamed of myself. But at the same time it makes me feel very grateful for Christ’s love and sacrifice for me.

Lord, teach me to recognize the evilness of my own sins. Remind me that I am no better of a person than anyone else. Through Your power, may I choose to say no to my entangling snares and also show others the same grace and mercy which I have received.