Dealing With It

This little episode comes from my past, but I thought of it the other day as the temperatures have moderated a little bit.

            Earlier in my career, I served at a place that didn’t have air conditioning.  As a result, the church building could get really hot in the summertime.  We had a stretch where the thermometer neared triple digits and it became quite warm in the office.  Knowing we didn’t have air conditioning, some well-meaning friends stopped by to make sure I was okay.  There was lots of talk about what it would take to install some kind of cooling system.  Many ideas were thrown out and debated.  After about a half hour’s worth of discussion, one of the fellows made in interesting comment.  He said, “Just wait a few weeks until it cools down and you won’t have to worry about it.  Everyone will forget about it until next year.”  We all laughed, mostly because we knew he was right.  We had talked about air conditioning for years.  Then the temperatures would moderate and it was forgotten.

            That experience reminds me of something that goes on in our personal lives regularly.  We fall prey to a particular sin, and our lives become very uncomfortable.  It might be something personal and the discomfort we feel comes from our own guilty conscience.  Or, our sin might affect others and we suffer through a strained relationship.  No matter what it is, for a time, while our life is in turmoil, the issue causes such pain that it is at the forefront of our minds.  We search for ways to deal with it so we won’t have to experience such heartache again.  But then the pain subsides, and with time, the issue retreats to the back of our mind and we forget about it, often without ever dealing with it in an appropriate manner.  We just go on living, until the sin rears its ugly head again.

            The Bible says there’s a better way to handle our sin.  It says we need to address it as soon as it happens.  We need to confess it to God and seek his forgiveness.  Then we need to repent.  In other words, we need to acknowledge the mistake we made and turn from it so we won’t repeat it.  Most of us are good at the first part.  We’re good at admitting our sins to God and seeking forgiveness for them.  It’s the turning from them that gives us trouble.  Rather than make the necessary changes in our lives to avoid making the same mistake over and over again, we just keep doing the same old things; and we keep getting the same old results.  In Hebrews we’re told to “throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and run with perseverance the race marked out for us.”  The biblical writer is saying that we need to take repentance seriously.  When we become aware of sin in our life, we need to take the steps to deal with it.  You see, living with sin is like trying to run while you’re all tangled up in a fishing line.  You’re able to keep moving forward, but it’s slow going and awkward.  You stumble and stagger, and the further you go, the more you get caught up in the line and your steps get shorter and shorter…and it just keeps getting more and more difficult to walk.  That’s no way to live.  We need to cut the line and free ourselves from the mess.

            I hope you’ll take this little piece of advice seriously.  When you sin, when you make a mistake and you know it – learn from it.  Evaluate what happened and change your behavior so it doesn’t happen again.  Don’t just forget about it because it will come back to bite you again…only harder next time.