your thoughts are most welcome...
Hmmm...sin to me is a separation from God -- a turning away from Him and His will...to my own pleasures and will. Not always actions or deeds - thoughts, especially judgmental or neglectful positions in relationships are both struggles for me.
In my own strength, I can do nothing to change my sin -- but I avail myself of His promise to forgive me as I follow my sin with confession and turning or repenting...back to Him. The Spirit is great at convicting me of my sin -- I truly wish I would always act on that conviction swiftly and bow down to His throne of grace -- instead of continuing after harmful idols of my own heart.
May our Lord bless you today and through this weekend with His power, comfort, grace and mercy,
Sin = 1) The state of having turned my back on the one person who loves me more than I can imagine; 2) Those actions, attitudes, and agreements which keep me from turning toward said person.
How do I dislodge it? Sometimes it requires a swift whack to the head with a heavenly clue-by-four. Other times, it requires nothing but the slightest breath of a prayer. Sometimes it requires pain and anguish. Other times, an act of mercy or joy.
The closest I have ever come to a formulaic response would be: accept and confess. Accept the reality of the situation; accept that which I am responsible for; accept that for which I cannot be responsible. Confess the lies; confess the truths; confess my hurt; confess the hurt I have done; confess my need; confess my God.
Sin is that which comes between me and God.
Those things are defined by the Word of God (the Big 10 list, when I need specifics, and the general teachings of Jesus, which I understand best by the still small voice inside of me).
I sometimes sin deliberately because I think I can get away with it, I think it doesn't really matter all that much, or just because I want to. Because I like it.
Understanding my motivation is what leads me to change my behavior most effectively. I'd like to say that when I 'dislodge' (love your word there) myself from sin, it is because my heart is stunned by the holiness of God - but that is not always true. I am a selfish woman.
So, I make myself be honest with myself. I admit that I'm selfish. I tell somebody else the truth, and accept their grace. Then I learn to live in God's grace.
As a daughter of God, it is true that their is NOTHING better than living in his grace, pursuing Him instead of sin. But I am a broken human. It's not necessarily an easy thing to do....
I have missed you here. Glad you are back.
Sin. That word evokes so many thoughts and feelings.
"The things I would do, I don't. The things I hate, I do."
I often struggle with seeing my relationship with my Father as one of acceptance, and forgiveness, and life. It's usually shortly after I strike a legalistic pose. Then I am the hamster on the wheel, running fast to nowhere.
Sin is what has ruined this world since the Fall, our Father sent His Son to destroy that, and to set us free.
I know he's a heretic ;>), but at times I need to read Brennan Manning, and am reminded of the furious love of God. Who loves me, even when I can't love myself.
His anger has been satisfied, our sin has been cancelled, and He wants to share His bread with us.
Peace, and welcome back!
It's messy. It's a pain in the ass.
Disloge it? Confession, absolution, penance, a life time of receiving God's graces through the sacraments of his Church is how it goes with me. I wish I'd known and lived the his sacraments many years ago because I was weary in the wasteland of pretend.
Brotherly love to you, as ever.
Gotta go with Sharon on this; if you knowingly turn away from God, and towards the darkness, even though you feel the Lords gentle nudge towards the opposite way, then you are in sin.
"I wake and feel the fell of dark, not day.
What hours, O what black hours we have spent
This night! what sights you, heart, saw; ways you went!
And more must, in yet longer light's delay.
With witness I speak this. But where I say
Hours I mean years, mean life. And my lament
Is cries countless, cries like dead letters sent
To dearest him that lives alas! away.
I am gall, I am heartburn. God's most deep decree
Bitter would have me taste: my taste was me;
Bones built in me, flesh filled, blood brimmed the curse.
Selfyeast of spirit a dull dough sours. I see
The lost are like this, and their scourge to be
As I am mine, their sweating selves; but worse."
~Gerard Manley Hopkins~
Might not say much anymore, but you're still in my prayers.
i wish i could walk around, "stunned at the holiness of God." i believe i need more meditation to get myself there.
i sat yesterday for the first time in weeks, wondering what i should do with the extra hour God gave me. i felt moved to the Scriptures and prayed prior to opening. my bible flipped to Romans 2: "But because of your stubbornness and your unrepentant heart, you are storing up wrath against yourself for the day of God's wrath, when his righteous judgment will be revealed. God "will give to each person according to what he has done."
oh, my. i was speechless and read the commentary on sin.
He is reaching for me, i am reaching back, but there is this chasm i can't seem to span. i am doing all the right things, went to confession on saturday (again - i go quite often any more) and wonder if the priest is sitting there thinking, "aGAIN??" but he is kind and gentle and tells me of God's love for me, regardless of what i do. He just wants me to be made whole.
i am trying and will continue to try.
thank you, my faithful friends, for your wise and seasoned comments. i have read and re-read several times. something has to sink in.
much love.
My parish priest once told the congregation in his homily, that during the Consecration, to place our troubles in the Chalice before it is raised to the Lord. The Lord then carries our troubles and eases our burdens.
Dear friend - there is a point AFTER the doing all the right things and even beyond the trying and continuing to try that grace finally enters in. It is higher and deeper and wider than anything we imagine.
We end up stumbling into it.
I do believe that the more you cry out, the closer you come. Be hungry for your wholeness and focus on the filling of His spirit as much as you do the ridding of the sin. The two things cannot coexist, and one eventually squeezes out the other.
When we make enough room, the good guy wins.
((hugs))
This poem is the heart of my prayer when I feel the way you do.
Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.
m2, I'm so glad you chose the Word for your spare hour...and what a convicting/appropriate/timely verse to drop your eyes to!
I also hope that you, like me, have been refreshed with Steve and Janet's poems/verses...
Here's another that I love and have been working at memorizing and usually brings me to tears...
"Love bade me welcome, yet my soul drew back,
Guilty of dust and sin.
But quick-ey'd Love, observing me grow slack
From my first entrance in,
Drew nearer to me, sweetly questioning
If I lack'd anything.
"A guest," I answer'd, "worthy to be here";
Love said, "You shall be he."
"I, the unkind, the ungrateful? ah my dear,
I cannot look on thee."
Love took my hand and smiling did reply,
"Who made the eyes but I?"
"Truth, Lord, but I have marr'd them; let my shame
Go where it doth deserve."
"And know you not," says Love, "who bore the blame?"
"My dear, then I will serve."
"You must sit down," says Love, "and taste my meat."
So I did sit and eat."
-- George Herbert
these poems/prayers have knocked my socks off. the encouragement, the emails -- how do i do this without you?
God speaks through so many people. i think i am ready to listen.
the translation of the word "sin" from greek is: to miss the mark
M-Deuce, I too have been feeling "distant", ever since my father In laws passing in April. It seemed so unfair, and I would be lying if I said I wasn't a little bit mad. But I realized that little by little, I was ebbing out of the light, and into the darkness, and that I knew all along that God was with me, but I chose to ignore him. I knew it was a sin to do "option B" instead of "option A", but I did it anyway, and I really had noone to blame but myself.
So I sat myself down, talked earnestly with myself, confessed earnestly to my favorite priest, and then for added measure, I have decided to consecrate myself to the Militia Immaculata, as an added boot to the seat of my pants to get back to a prayerful life.
I hate to say it, but the old ad "Just do it" is right!
Don't dwell on the sin. Cultivate a virtue. I'm quick to anger and try to cultivate patience. I gossip and am trying to replace the pleasure it gives me by writing about the complications of human interaction in fiction, Most of all I need to give up the romance of being mired in sin and in need of a rescuer and simply accept the forgiveness that God offers freely.
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