Sin

sin

some thoughts following reading this blog post from Tanya Marlow

thank you tanya for this great post. i've moved into a new phase of thinking about sin. not that i disagree with how i saw it before, it's just i didn't see big enough.

i went through a very difficult time a few years ago where i was praying about having to take action in a relationship where someone close was being particularly unkind to me. as i started to pray about it what came home more and more was my own sinfulness and my own need of God. it took a whole year of this before i could deal with the thing, but when the time came everything lined up so that it all went remarkably smoothly and peacefully even tho it was terribly sad. the big thing was me being utterly secure in God. the thing is you see is that in that extended period of repentance, what came up more and more was not my "naughtiness" but the whole much much bigger thing of "falling short of the glory of God". i was more and more thinking not so much about individual sins, as it becoming a craving for more of God's beautiful purity. a combination of seeing holiness not as things i don't do, just making myself sterile - hospitals are sterile, and that's good, they're not contaminated. but that's not enough.

to ache for the holiness like where is says your sins were as scarlet but they shall be white as snow - that sound of perfect stillness and the extra brightness before you even open the curtains, and then there it is, the fresh, clean, sparkling beauty of the new snow that makes even my tired old adult heart skip a beat and my eyes twinkle.

holiness is a something, not a nothing.

for all have sinned and fallen short. i looked up the word sin. the old english word synn is apparently the translation for a word used in archery meaning when the arrow doesn't even get as far as the target. i can imagine being lined up to take my turn at a local competition, and it's my turn to make the bow sing and send the arrow winging and hear it thud into the target. my sweaty fingers slip slightly and instead of pinging, the bowstring does a kind of thwup and the arrow gets into the air but then plops pathetically on the grass in front of the target. i want to die on the inside. everyone laughs or boos. the judges signal a synn.

the word would have been just as common in Elizabethan times when it was put into english as it was in Jesus' day. just as common as football or cricket terms now. perhaps we should change it to "own goal" "off side", a failed free kick that instead of thudding off the boot, swooping through the air to hurtle past the goalie's fingertips and slam into the net, no the foot clips the ball, it dribbles forward and doesn't even get past the wall. or "lbw", or the ball slipping off the willow and with a limp, anemic curve drops sweetly into the wicket keepers waiting hands, or a slip or a gully.

the net result is to feel like kicking myself for not being more alert to my own weaknesses, not being up to my strengths, not being more aware of Jesus, much much more aware of Jesus. "the evil we have done and the good we have left undone".  the good we have left undone. that's the thing. that's the biggie. that's the key. not to make us feel guilty, but to drive us to spending days on end in the nets working at getting it right, with a positive aim in mind, the goal, the target - the glory of God. what ever you do, do it in love, do it for me. what ever. when ever you did it for one of these you did it for me ....