a certain man was a certain man. am a certain man. hope to one day be that certain man.

my blahblah is always before me

I've wanted to write another blog for quite some time now and I simply haven't, until 20 minutes ago when I decided that tonight was going to be the night I wrote.  No matter what, this was my highest priority and nothing would get in the way.  I'm on a mission and neither rain, nor snow, nor sleet nor hail can keep me from it.....and then I remembered I needed to do laundry.

Hi, I'm Tom and I'm the poster child for ADD.

...and then i started looking up pictures that convey ADD which further distracted me...it's like something doesn't want me to write!

The phrase "my sin is always before me" has been on my mind over the last couple months.  Oh no, not SIN!  Ugh, what an ugly word, not to mention a sure fire way to bum someone out.  It's such a downer.  It's a word that immediately brings to mind the legalistic Pharisee that is so caught up in rules and finger pointing.  This is a philosophy that absolutely makes me burn within - when I see the truth of the gospel being perverted by burdensome, heavy yokes.  Ooh, two new posts titles just came to mind: "the gospel pimp" and "the gospel pervert"...but alas, those are for another day.  Even though that word  leaves a foul taste in my mouth, I find myself repeating the phrase over and over  to myself.  It's from from the third verse in Psalm 51 (my favorite passage of Scripture) where David cries out to God acknowledging himself as someone who has rebelled against God.  My sin is always before me.  When I repeat those words, it's not because I'm crippled by this overwhelming sense of guilt, thinking that I can never do right by God.  Well, that's sometimes the case but not usually.  Thankfully I embraced that truth several years ago when those "you'll never be acceptable" thoughts were really messing with me.  Paul puts it like this,

There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.  For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:1-2, ESV)

So then God after breathing life into my limp premature body, after sparing mother and child nearly 27 years ago, after witnessing my current rebelliousness against him, after knowing all to well my future inclinations to spit in his face...after all that, he's still wants me on his team.  Therefore, it is not I am acceptable, but Christ on my behalf is acceptable.  That sacrifice where God became man (the implications of this alone are huge) to pay the penalty I never could.  He literally gave his only Son, his pride, his joy, his love to pay that price.  There's freedom living in the shadow of that truth.  Wow, that's not where I intended to go with this post, but it's foundational to how I deal with "my sin is always before me."

When I think on those words by the Psalmist it's not guilt that comes to mind but rather it's frustration.  It's when I remember who I am and realize what I just thought, said or did.  It's a frustration that stems from the recognition that I'm not who I ought to be or even who I want to be.  I daily disgust myself with the thoughts that come to mind.  "How could I have just thought that!"  I know my position is secure and I'm fully aware that my practice still has a way to go.  Paul repeats this all through his first letter to the Corinthians.  You're kids of God, live like it!  My constant struggle to "live like it" is what frustrates me.  It's those words from David's statement in this Psalm that serve as a reminder to me that I don't have it all together.  I'm not as squeaky clean as I tell myself or as I let on.  Again, this isn't "i'm going straight to hell" guilt but rather a heightened awareness that I'm quite accident prone and in daily need of direction.  Eugene Peterson does a solid job of capturing the essence of Romans 7:14-23:

What I don't understand about myself is that I decide one way, but then I act another, doing things I absolutely despise. So if I can't be trusted to figure out what is best for myself and then do it, it becomes obvious that God's command is necessary.  But I need something more! For if I know the law but still can't keep it, and if the power of sin within me keeps sabotaging my best intentions, I obviously need help! I realize that I don't have what it takes. I can will it, but I can't do it. I decide to do good, but I don't really do it; I decide not to do bad, but then I do it anyway. My decisions, such as they are, don't result in actions. Something has gone wrong deep within me and gets the better of me every time.  It happens so regularly that it's predictable. The moment I decide to do good, sin is there to trip me up. I truly delight in God's commands, but it's pretty obvious that not all of me joins in that delight. Parts of me covertly rebel, and just when I least expect it, they take charge.

Why did David's words keep coming to mind?  Over a year ago I began my fascination with John 15, namely where it talks about abiding in the vine.  What does it look like if I were to really abide in Christ?  I conceptually understand that phrase, but felt convicted that my understanding was a fraction of Jesus' intended depth.  Obviously.  I'm still sitting on that phrase, but from there I began to wrestle with a new idea.  Grace and mercy.   I mean, if I'm going to abide in Christ I can't help be abide in his grace and mercy.  Again…I understand it but what else is there to it?  Here I am, excited about soaking in the awesomeness that is God's love as shown through his mercy and grace!  I'm ready for that encouragement.  I ready for that warm fuzzy feeling!  My sin is always before me. This sucks.  Why couldn't I stick with grace and mercy?  Or why couldn't I move to other feel good church words like hope and joy?  Then in hit me.  My plea for a deeper understanding of grace and mercy was being answered!  There's no way I can even begin to view grace and mercy with the correct lenses without realizing the depth of my sin.  It's my sin, my inability to keep God's standard that was the crime.  The punishment for this crime, by definition, had to be death.  By God's mercy he chose not to pour out his wrath on me.  By his grace, he chose to allow his beloved to be nailed to that cross.

God, please forgive me when I view my sin as too messy to wrestle with.  When I choose to sweep it under the rug.  When I rather focus on the fun parts of being a Christian, while frequently denying my brokenness that led to Calvary.  Help me to see my sin as you do, not as the Pharisees do.  Help live in freedom as you defined it, not as my world is redefining it.

I'm still dealing with the weight of all of this.  My thoughts are scattered and my understanding is still being developed.  That will always be the case.  However, the one thing I know is that a proper view of my sin is leading me to a proper view of God's love.  Where there is not a healthy balance between sin and love, you have the extremes of legalism and license.  So, despite the ugliness of sin and even though we live in a time where it's not cool to talk about that sort of thing, I cannot be shy of the word or its implications.  My sin leads to God's love.  A simple but sometimes forgotten and frequently undervalued truth.  I once was a certain man captive to the word and it's master.  No more.  I still deal with the consequences of life under that former master.  I still wear the scars of abuse from that relationship.  The memories of old still haunt me now.  In all that my reassurance is this: I have been made into a new man purged with hyssop and washed whiter than snow. (Psalm 51:7)

One final note, it's been nearly a week since I began writing this post.  As I mentioned earlier, I started amidst distractions of laundry and Google images of hyperactive screaming children.  I let the words and thoughts come to me over several days and then Saturday night I sat down to finish off the post.  After a couple hours of writing on Saturday, I hit Save only to find that technology hates me and I wound up losing most of what I had written that day.  I spent all day Saturday heavily meditating on Psalm 51 and the truths I've been learning, writing bits and pieces as I went!  It's amazing how one second you can be so excited about sharing something on your heart and the next second you can be screaming at WordPress for it's failure to periodically save.  I'm pretty sure I didn't recapture everything I had written on Saturday.  Maybe it's current state is where God wants it to be?  I'm not sure.  I am certain that after huffing and puffing Saturday night, after shutting down my computer in discouragement, I had a renewed sense of determination that I was going to finish writing this blog.  Something, perhaps that former master, was trying to distract me long enough and make me upset enough to keep me from following through.  Not going to work!