Category: Grace

Frightened of Sin?

Halloween is this week: Television stations air scary movies. Businesses decorate with cobwebs and spiders. Kids dress up like ghoulish monsters.

When I asked my family what frightens them, my husband responded: “You.”

I don’t blame him.

Last week, our family was working in the yard. I was in good spirits, shoveling gravel with my teenage son and my daughter’s boyfriend. Then I turned around and saw my twelve-year-old Japanese maple lying on the ground. My husband and daughter thought the tree was too close to our house and chopped it down.

Steam didn’t come from my ears, but profanity spewed from my lips. My face didn’t turn red, but if looks could have killed…

Throwing my rake on the ground, I blasted them with my words like bullets from a Tommy gun, and ran away in tears.

Even Jonah from the Bible could not have been more outraged when God appointed a worm and wind to destroy his shade tree.

Why the public confession?

Because a butchered tree may be upsetting, but it does not excuse an ungodly response.

My family apologized profusely; they had no idea. And before the sun set on my anger, I asked them to forgive me. We laugh about my crazed behavior.

But sin is no laughing matter.

It frightens me to know sin lingers in my heart, waiting for an opportune moment to rear itself.

“For from the heart come evil thoughts, murder, adultery, all sexual immorality, theft, lying, and slander” (Matthew 15:19).

Isn’t it easy to walk in the Spirit instead of the flesh when there’s no agitation? But add a pinch of stress, a pound of unmet expectations, or a felled tree and suddenly I’m staring at my flawed humanity.

My hope: “If we confess our sin, God is faithful and willing to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.”  (1 John 1:9).

My consolation: “Karen (my emphasis) was washed clean (purified by a complete atonement for sin and made free from the guilt of sin), and Karen was consecrated (set apart, hallowed), and Karen was justified (pronounced righteous, by trusting) in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit of our God.” (1 Corinthians 6:11, Amplified version).

My assurance: God uses even this…a felled Japanese maple…to teach me I’m a work in progress, relying on His grace.

Thoughts Gone Wild

Early morning. Hit the pavement. Walking fast. Blue skies overhead, but I only notice the black asphalt beneath my feet.

Forty-five minutes gives me time to ponder; allows my mind to wander down dark paths.

Concerns creep into the forefront. First one. Then another. Until my anxious thoughts flow like the Dow Jones ticker tape.

Overwhelmed, I decide to pray. Take those heart concerns to the Lord. Dump them in His capable hands. “Casting all your anxiety upon Him, because He cares for you.” (1 Peter 5:6)

No sooner do I pray for that something…that someone ….when my mind drops anchor into troubled waters. And I camp there.

Instead of casting my cares on Jesus and resting in still waters, my thoughts go wild.

I begin to sink. Can’t solve the problem. Can’t imagine that God will either. Takes my breathe away.

So I come up for air, and pray for the next thing. But that next thing is like stirring up a hornet’s nest. Fears, what if’s, hurts circle in my head like hornets. Dive bomb and sting my thin skin. Until I taste the bitter bile rising in my throat.

Oddly enough, as I walk and fret, Chris Tomlin is praising God on my I pod. I hear the melody and his voice. But I’m not listening to the words. My mind is elsewhere.

Occasionally, a random lyric from different songs infiltrate my conscience. Catches my attention.

Song lyric: “Your grace is enough for me.”

Is it? Then why don’t I receive His grace and stop beating myself up?

Song lyric: “Only you can satisfy..Your strength is a tower the righteous run into.”

Really? Am I allowing God to satisfy my heart? Or searching for something else? Relying on His strength? Or mine?

Song lyric: “Here comes the King, all bow down.“

Am I submitting to God’s authority? Or paying lip service and having my own way?

Too many thoughts. Too much SELF standing between me and Jesus.

So I claim 2 Corinthians 10:5, “…Taking every thought captive to the obedience of Christ.”

Takes intentional will power, but I capture the thoughts and leave them at the Cross of Jesus.

As I’m walking up the driveway, I finally notice the blue skies. And Chris Tomlin’s lyrics in the next song shrinks all my troubles in view of….

How Great is our God

What is your favorite praise song?

Grace Amazing

Our summer meal was light: Chicken Caesar Salads. A sharp contrast to our heavy dinner conversation…..

“Do you mean to say that if Hitler had asked God’s forgiveness and received Christ, he’d go to heaven?”

I nodded. The expression on my guest’s face told me If that’s true, life’s not fair.

It’s True, based on scripture: “By grace, we are saved through faith; and that not of ourselves, it is the gift of God; not as a result of works, that no one should boast” (Ephesians 2:8,9). If we can earn our way to heaven, then why the Cross?

But I agree, it’s not fair if a man who exterminated people like cockroaches can be forgiven and receive eternal salvation. Who in his right mind would want to absolve Hitler or his henchmen? May they rot in hell….wouldn’t that be justice?

As we washed salad bowls, I thought about God’s grace — the power to save a human soul. Yes, even the souls of leading Nazis who were the most hated men of their time.

The Cross and the Swastika by F.T. Grossmith (Pacific Press Publishing Assoc.,1989) tells what happened to Hitler’s men during their last months in Nuremberg.

US Army Chaplain, Major Henry Gerecke was assigned to them as their spiritual adviser. Dealing with Hess and Goring wasn’t easy, but the chaplain prayed for the ability to love Hitler’s gang and share the hope of Christ. “He saw several of his ‘congregation’ come to Christ before he accompanied them to the gallows.”

This testimony of God’s all encompassing grace reminded me of a television documentary. Prison inmates dressed in starched white uniforms, clean-shaven, with cropped haircuts, stood onstage. Their voices rose in unison as they sang the Christian hymn Amazing Grace. 

What hideous crimes had they committed to become society’s prisoners? And yet, by God’s grace, these men’s hearts were transformed from criminals to saints.

Nazis, Convicts, Myself….all guilty, to some degree, of breaking God’s law.

Trusting Christ as our Savior…..all pardoned and cleansed, by the blood of Jesus. And His finished work on the cross.

No one is beyond God’s redeeming grace.  And that is amazing!

“Purify me with hyssop, and I shall be clean; Wash me, and I shall be whiter than snow” Psalm 51:7

“If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” 1 John 1:9

Free on the Inside

The jail room’s cold concrete walls surrounded me like a stone tomb. Women inmates stood in their tiny cell rooms behind metal doors. They stared at me through thick-glassed windows in the doors. They stared at me like animals in a cage waiting to get out.

Without warning, a loud clicking sound echoed throughout the room as each bolted door automatically unlocked. The women emerged from their cells like the walking dead. Some of them sat down in front of the television. Others used the pay telephones.

One inmate, with tangled bleached hair and a tattoo on her forearm, timidly approached my table. “Are you the church lady?”

“I’m a volunteer jail chaplain. Would you like to study the Bible?”

She nodded and sat across from me. Dull eyes, hollow cheeks, and two missing front teeth belied her age. I’d seen her withered face on dozens of women addicted to drugs.   

We talked for a few minutes to break the ice. Then I opened my Bible to Mark 5:1-20 and read about a man possessed by demons. Although the townspeople tried to chain the man, he always broke free and ran around like a mad dog. He lived in the tombs of dead men. He gashed himself with stones.

But Jesus came to the man. He healed him, revealing God’s love and power.

I told the woman, “It’s the same unfathomable love that led Jesus to the cross to die for our sins. It’s the same incomparable power that raised Jesus from the dead, and gives us eternal life.”  

Hope illuminated the woman’s face. We prayed. And by God’s love and power, this shackled woman became my sister in Christ.    

Became like me, a sinner saved by grace.   

“But because of  His great love for us, God who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgression – it is by grace you have been saved.” (Ephesians 2:4,5 NIV)

Balloons and Bikes

Festive balloons that once floated in the air to celebrate my birthday now huddle on the floor. The helium is gone; they’ve shrunk in size, resembling pastel Easter eggs.

 Some days, I feel like a deflated balloon. Someone or something lets out my air, slowly or with a sudden bang, and I’m face down with nowhere to look, but up!

God’s grace is sufficient, His power is made perfect in weakness. (2 Cor 12:9) Really, if so, then how do I respond to life’s circumstances?

Do I lift a limp fist and vow to rise again on my own strength?  Or seek God’s presence: empty, ego deflated; hands open wide to receive His grace and power?

Last summer, I went with my family on a bike ride. We didn’t realize the dirt path to the lake was predominately uphill. We spent more time pushing the bikes than we did riding them. Red-faced, I fussed at my daughter’s athletic boyfriend who chose the route.

At one point, the path flattened and we jumped on our bikes, pedaling with all our might until…..there was another incline. This time, the boyfriend rode his bike beside mine, and placing his hand on my lower back, pushed me forward while we pedaled. I was depleted, but I could continue the journey because I relied on the boyfriend’s strength. His strength was mine. And I understood how… 

Every circumstance is an opportunity to rely on God’s strength, experience grace sufficient for the moment.

 Trusting His Spirit to fill me, lift me higher and higher until I’m buoyant as a helium balloon rising in the sky; joyful and free in His presence.