Category Archives: Sin

Flight of Fantasy

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Linnea and her family have lived in Florida for 8 years, 1200 long miles away from me. But it’s a lovely place to visit during a Midwestern winter, and because they live in the central part of the state, I got to fly into Orlando, an airport with many flight choices and good prices. My grandbaby is a week overdue today, and I’m thrilled to be part of the welcoming committee.

Orlando International is popular with families because of Disney World, destination of endless delights. And quite a few plane passengers begin their vacations the minute they board. Princess tiaras, Mickey Mouse ears, and “Cars” t-shirts abound, adding a playful atmosphere to basic air travel. Occasionally flight attendants will get in the spirit of things too, coaxing passengers to sing “M-I-C-K-E-Y…” and telling the kids how excited Cinderella is that they’ll be visiting her castle.

I remember my first trip to Disneyland in Anaheim, California (long before Disney World existed). It was the late 1950’s, and the much smaller theme park was big stuff to us. Entrance was under $2 (now $75), and our California cousins showed us a wonderful time.

Disneyland’s Main Street was lined with tantalizing shops that promised happiness with every purchase, and we begged our parents for Snow White toothbrushes and Tinkerbelle fairy dust. Leaving the park, our enthusiasm ran high for all things Disney. In the weeks that followed our California trip, however, other infatuations pushed Mickey and company to the back of our minds.

And that’s the thing. Out of sight often becomes out of mind, and not just for grade school kids.

We adults have the same problem. We might decide to read through the Bible in a year, then hit Leviticus and quit. Or maybe we attend a spiritual retreat and come away with 10 pounds of literature and a resolve to go deep with the Lord but then never empty our shopping bag. Or we become convicted during a sermon and promise to rout sin out of our lives, but after a few failures, we stop trying. Or we attempt to memorize Scripture but lose our zeal when the verses won’t stick.

Is it possible to maintain enthusiasm for something when we’d rather put it on the back burner? I think of Jesus, living a victorious life against tremendous odds and wonder how he accomplished it. Scripture gives the answer: he refused to stray very far from his Father. They partnered continually through prayer, sometimes all night long, and that collaboration was the key to his success.

Amazingly, we have the same option, not to be sinless, but to partner with the Father. Teaming with God is the key to successfully tussling with temptation, especially the temptation to quit trying. And if we turn away from him, the result is much like leaving Disneyland. Out of sight is out of mind.

The Father is out of sight, but may our partnership with him never be out of mind.

“Some people hear God’s Word “with enthusiasm, but the enthusiasm doesn’t go very deep. It’s only another fad, and the moment there’s trouble, it’s gone.” (Luke 8:11,13 The Message)

Triple Threat

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I’m a devotee of Neosporin, the triple-antibiotic ointment used to avoid infection and hasten the healing of minor skin wounds. Having a history of finger cuts, knee scrapes and barefoot punctures, I’ve noticed that skin fixes itself much quicker if I smear wounds with Neosporin and cover them with Band-Aids.

While working around the house yesterday along with 3 Neosporin-slathered injuries in various stages of healing, I heard a question from the Lord: “Does your triple-antibiotic salve remind you of anything?” And right away the Trinity came to mind, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

In a way, these 3 “Persons” are our triple-remedy against evil. We can’t fight the devil in traditional ways, because he’s a cunning opponent who has nothing in common with skinned knees or cut fingers. We desperately need a way to avoid being infected by his evil schemes.

Ephesians 6 reminds us that when we’re battling him, we aren’t fighting fleshly wounds, so triple-antibiotic ointment won’t help. Instead we’re waging a more serious war, one with “the powers of this dark world and the spiritual forces of evil.” (v.12)

Those descriptions are scary, but God doesn’t want us to get lost in fear. Instead we’re to take advantage of our Trinity-triple-threat against all evil, Father, Son and Spirit. Together or as individuals they pack a powerful wallop against anything the devil can dish out, and we can have victory over evil only because of the three of them.

The Bible is full of people who Satan earmarked for attack, people who were given choices between his evil and God’s goodness, and not much has changed since then. Every day we’re all presented with the same two choices, and the difference between failure and success depends on two things:

  1. whether or not we really want to overcome evil, and
  2. whether or not we seek help from the Trinity-triple-threat to do so.

All of us have a natural bent toward evil. When we give in to it, we’re siding with Satan. When we fight it, we’re siding with God. The old cartoon with a mini-devil on one shoulder and a mini-angel on the other isn’t too far from the truth. But just as in the cartoon, we can’t overpower evil by ourselves. We need the triple-threat of the Father, Son and Spirit. They’ve already won over the devil (back at Calvary) and as a result, can see to it that we win, too.

Tonight as I re-bandage my superficial wounds and smear on fresh blobs of triple antibiotic ointment, I’ll picture the Trinity-triple-threat working on my behalf… which will knock that mini-devil right off my shoulder.

“Christ lives within you, so even though your body will die because of sin, the Spirit gives you life because you have been made right with God.” (Romans 8:10)

Messy Motives

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All of us have days when we work hard but accomplish little. One of my daily prayer requests is for God-prompted efficiency, but it doesn’t always pan out that way.

Today, my first day back from England, I’d hoped to get much accomplished and started the laundry first thing. It wasn’t long, though, before I got distracted by other chores, and inefficiency took over. When I finally got back to the wash machine hours later, I opened the lid and groaned. I’d forgotten to check my pockets, and the black wash was dotted with hundreds of tiny, sticky bits of wet Kleenex.

As I lifted the clothes from the washer, pieces of matted tissue flicked onto me and the rug, and also back into the wash tub. I stood and picked at the clothes for a long time before putting them in the dryer, berating myself for such inefficiency.

Then later, on the fourth load, the very same thing happened! Hundreds more pieces of wet tissue had to be picked off of more clothes, inefficiency on steroids.

Isn’t sin much like that? We tuck away a little something negative and figure we’ll take care of it later. It may stay hidden for weeks or even years without causing any trouble, and we may even have forgotten about it. Then suddenly it makes a reappearance that looks nothing like the original. It’s bigger, stickier, a problem multiplied to the point of requiring major damage control.

Most of us find it hard to always do things right. We’re better at cutting corners, fudging the truth, and enjoying corrupt thoughts. Even when we know we’re on a path we shouldn’t be, we’re reluctant to get back on track right away. We say, “Yes, I’ll definitely correct that, just not right now.”

I’d like to think that after we make enough messes, we’ll learn not to repeat our mistakes. But my wash day mayhem proves otherwise. Intentions are one thing, actions another.

Thankfully, God wants to help. He starts each of us off with a tender conscience and urges us to pay attention to it. If we ignore his promptings, we can count on extensive clean-up later.

But every new day offers another chance to do things well. Just as my dryer’s lint screen caught many of the tissue bits on my clothes, God makes sure our sin catches us, then sees that we deal with the consequences. But after we clean up our messes, his offer is always for a new chance to try for righteous living.

Maybe a good prayer at the start of each day isn’t a request for efficiency but for a passion to do things right the first time around.

“The Lord will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will expose the motives of the heart.” (1 Corinthians 4:5)

Homeland Security

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Traveling in and out of foreign countries can be tricky, and the best idea is to cooperate with those in charge. At official airport checkpoints, it’s wise not to speak until spoken to and then to give short, succinct answers. Forget the ad libs, the cute quips, the attempts to be friendly.

This morning as I left England, I was ushered through 3 airport security checkpoints by uniformed officials in search of eye contact and honest statements. As I waited in line, I worried about several things. Would they be irritated by the orange in my carry-on, since fruit in luggage is a no-no? I remembered being lectured long ago because a banana peel had been in my bag hours earlier. Its lingering scent won me a bag inspection.

Displaying my clear plastic quart-sized baggie with small gels and lotions in it, I approached checkpoint number two thinking I’d covered all the bases. Then I remembered the lip balm in my coat pocket.

Watching the woman in front of me get frisked and then endure a pocket check, I pictured myself in an empty room asking for one phone call. Thankfully I made it through that one, but while sitting at the gate, one more check occurred. Several men arrived with leashed dogs trained to sniff bags, encouraging them to walk slowly past each of us… twice.

I couldn’t wait to board the plane that was sitting just outside the airport window, the one with “American Airlines” written along the side. After feeling like airport officials had been searching for a way to exclude me, that airplane represented the end of judgments and the beginning of warm acceptance.

After I was finally buckled into seat 33A, the plane took off and flew across the entire Atlantic Ocean above a carpet of fluffy white clouds. That heavenly scene pulled my thoughts to spiritual judgment and the harsh exclusion I deserve because of repeated sins. What will it feel like to stand in front of Jesus with that kind of record? Although airport officials had a certain measure of power over me today, Jesus will have far more on that day.

But the glorious truth is that when I arrive in paradise at life’s final checkpoint, the Jesus in front of me will have already given me clearance because of arrangements made long ago when he took my rejection upon himself. And from everything I read in Scripture, when I stand in front of him, I’ll experience the warmth of an acceptance like I’ve never known.

Today at my very last checkpoint, the one inside in the United States, an immigration officer looked me in the eye and said, “Welcome home.” That felt pretty good, but when Jesus says it, it’s going to be downright spectacular, the ultimate in homeland security.

“Adam’s sin led to condemnation, but God’s free gift leads to our being made right with God, even though we are guilty of many sins.” (Romans 5:16)

Guilty?

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Yesterday I was back in an airport, looking forward to a visit with our son Hans and his family in north England. Arriving early, I bought a McDonalds salad, then settled in at my gate for lunch.

Most of the 200 chairs in the waiting area were empty since a crowd had just boarded, and the two women at the desk were closing up shop. Suddenly the ramp door burst open, and a 20-something guy rushed out, loping in my direction. I looked up, fork in hand, and watched him run past 10 rows of empty seats directly up to me, a security man trailing him.

Not sure what was happening, I took hold of my salad and got ready to jump. “You’re in my seat!” he said, panting with emotion. Surrounded by a room full of empty chairs, I found that hard to believe. “Are you sitting on it?” he said.

Thinking about Caesar dressing going all over my traveling clothes I said, “On what?”

“My phone!” he said. “Under you!”

By now the security guard had arrived and the young man, conflicted between the urgency to find his phone, his plane about to leave, and the security guy, bent down and began feeling around on the floor beneath me. I stood, trying to hang onto my salad, wondering if maybe he was right.

 

As the two women at the desk were on their way over, I was relieved to see I hadn’t been sitting on anything, but he was disappointed. “Oh never mind!” he said in frustration, pushing past the guard and the women toward his flight.

A minute later I watched his plane push back from the gate and wondered if he was looking at me through the window, thinking his phone was in my purse. The bottom line was that he’d accused me of something I didn’t do. Not that he had come right out and said it, but I’m sure he thought it.

The ultimate in being wrongly accused was Jesus. Labeled as a blasphemer against the one true God, his accusers couldn’t have been more off the mark. That same God was his beloved Father, the one sustaining him through life as a human. Jesus loved him intensely and obeyed his every command with perfection, all the way through to an undeserved death.

How must Jesus have felt to be wrongly accused of something contrary to everything he stood for and the essence of who he was? When the young man accused me of sitting on his phone, I wondered if maybe he was right. Jesus, though, never wondered about his innocence. Even after being arrested, accused and beaten, he was still sure of his innocence.

We humans are riddled with real reasons to feel guilty in many categories, yet when accused, we rush to defend ourselves, sometimes stretching what little truth is in us to make our point. Jesus knew he was blameless, responding to his accusers with the silence of certainty.

Of course none of us can be as untarnished as Jesus, but the more we make the difficult choices to reject sinful possibilities, the more we can enjoy the good feeling of guiltlessness, as well as finding it easier to tell the truth.

I am confident of one thing, though. If that young man calls his cell phone and someone answers, it won’t be me.

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:18)