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TUG OF WAR .It isn’t difficult to identify sin. It’s all around us. Anyone doubting it needs only pick up the local newspaper and scan the headlines, or listen for a moment to our gossiping co-workers or the sharing taking place Sunday morning in the church lobby. And if we’re really courageous, we can play back all that transpired in our own home for the past twenty-four hours. Interactions between siblings, parents and child, or even an honest reflection on conversation around our table at meal times will probably show us more than we would ever want to see regarding how subtly sin has succeeded in infiltrating our own lives. Though there is no such a thing as white-collar sin or blue-collar sin, often we act as if there is, busying ourselves with finger pointing or holding up mirrors in front of others, all to make certain they don’t miss seeing the sin in their own lives. And yes, often we even find the grace to look into the mirror ourselves. What a gift, God’s forgiveness. It covers all we bring to Him, faithfully washing the scarlet of our sins until it reflects the righteous brilliance of the Father and the Son. However, were I honest, my biggest sin struggle is not with man...or man’s heart. No, my struggle is with God’s heart...with His perpetual wooing – and His voice, that despite His faithfulness, due to deafness resulting from my unbelief, only intermittently reaches my ear. My struggle is all wrapped up in God – in my inability, my
unwillingness, my refusal to believe who He sees me to be in Christ. My struggle is a Cross Struggle! Can you relate? Does a victorious walk with Christ on a day to day basis elude you? Maybe we are each so busy looking on our outward appearance, trying in our own strength to change those things, that we fail to see with the eyes of the Father...eyes that look on the heart. Knowing the truth in our head is a far cry from filtering it faithfully deep down to our heart. And a cross is painful, so we handle it gingerly. Or maybe we even drag it like a mighty burden behind us making certain self-pity announces its presence to any and every ear that passes our way. How very different the Son’s heart. Jesus embraced it wholeheartedly, for He knew the cross was where life would be born. It was there grace and dependence on the Father revealed the power of God. The power of salvation. The power of transformed lives for each one willing to believe and embrace the paradox that death births life. Where it is so easy to seek out a protective cocoon which in reality walls out life and ensures a lesser death, God is calling us to embrace our cross. We long to run from it, but God pleads with our heart to hear that there is a beautiful work He longs to birth in us there. A beauty that can only come from dying. He calls each of us to an obedient embracing of this divine instrument of His choosing. Dare we disobey? To do so, to listen instead to the fear of our flesh instead of the voice of our loving Father, is to embrace sin. Oh, Cross of Christ, instrument of Divine choosing, awake in me a willingness to submit to your touch. May your seeming cruelty, when viewed by the eyes of selfish flesh, instead, be embraced by my own heart as the only true channel to the freedom in Christ God longs to bring me in to. Eternal Mercy, let me see, and embrace, that death to self is never painless – nor can it be accomplished in ways of ease or comfort. Help me to trust that it is only as self’s blood drains – drop by drop – onto the grasping soil below that Kingdom’s Lifeblood can be infused into my soul. Teach me to die, Precious Jesus...to give up the struggle to hold on to a life that is false...a life that is a distortion of all You intended for me before You set my time in motion. Let me open my hand, releasing all I perceive as me...and cling instead, tenaciously, to all You are...to a life that will only flow from Christ living out Truth in me.
DeAnna L. Brooks is a member of Faithwriters Christian Writing Community You can reach DeAnna L. Brooks at DeAnna@HCEFree.org © 2005 DeAnna L. Brooks. All rights reserved
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