Tag: Sin

Entangling Vines

Scott and I went on a hike over spring break and about half-way through our hike, we came upon a tree with a large vine growing around it.  The vine had been wrapped around the tree for so long that the tree was growing around and over the top of the vine.  I couldn’t get its deformed image out of my mind the rest of the hike. 

Now, I understand that the tree itself doesn’t have the ability to get rid of the vine, but what bothered me the most was the way the tree appeared to have become very comfortable even adapted to the entanglement of the vine around it.  The tree just kept going on with its life which for a tree means it just kept growing up and out.  However, because of the vine, it grew in a different shape than designed. 

I believe as Christians, we often do the same thing.  There are sins or hindrances in our lives that instead of removing them, we just become very comfortable with them.  We adapt and move on with the choking vine preventing us from normal growth or the growth God has planned for us.  I know one of mine is the entangling vine of busyness.  One night last week I had a cancelation, so after dinner was fixed and put away, I found myself with an unscheduled hour and half. I embarrassingly really didn’t know what to do with this free time.  In Ecclesiastes 4:4-8 we are told that it is a fool who toils to please others.  Now, in this story, Solomon warns that we shouldn’t just fold our hands and do nothing, but one handful of quietness is better than two handfuls of working all the time just to gain what others have. 

Right after the evening with some unexpected free time, I was reading the book Emotionally Healthy Spiritually.  The last few chapters of this book focuses on spending quiet time in God’s presence and keeping the Sabbath.  When you are as entwined with busyness, as I have allowed myself to be, you cannot keep the commandments of the Sabbath, and your life begins to look like the tree we spotted on our hike.    God has so much more for us when we live without vines in our life.

Reflecting on this, I realize I also struggle with always wanting more.  Not always new things, but also more work.  As soon as I get one job around the house finished, I find another one. If I can get this done, the yard will look better.  If I paint that wall, that room will be complete. “If only” is a vine that chokes and twists around us like none other.  Hebrews 13:5 speaks to this.  “Let your conduct be without covetousness be content with such things as you have.”  Always wanting more can be another choking vine. 

Enough about all the vines I have in my life.  What vines are twisted around you in your life?  Vines we just live with every day.  Vines we just work around because we have become very comfortable with them.  Vines we don’t even recognize as holding us back from what God has intended for us.  I pray that you find your vines and prune them from your life, so you do not become misshapen as the tree in this picture, but can grow into the beautiful tree you were created to be.

What is forgiveness?

dillardsOkay, don’t judge, but I’m still reading on the book that I referenced several months ago.  It is a 28 day study of the Lord’s prayer.  Yes, I’m going on about 4 months working on this study.  This is partly because I have read some sections a couple of times, partly because I’ve set the book aside for days at a time, and partly because I have to divide up what I am to read each day.  Anyway, I’m to the part of the study pertaining to the line “Forgive our sins as we forgive those that trespass against us”  As I read this  chapter, I arrogantly began to make a mental list of all the people I have forgiven.  I was reminded of how I had been treated at various times in my life, how God had been faithful through those times, and how I was better off by going through those experiences despite what others had done to me.   After several minutes of patting myself on the back, I put the study aside for the night and went to bed.

While shopping a few days later, I noticed out of the corner of my eye a person that was on my list of those forgiven.  As soon as I saw this person, my stomach jumped up into my throat or my heart fell down into my stomach.  Whatever happened, my insides were a mess.  There was an obvious physical reaction to just seeing this person.  Being the strong confident woman that I am and because I have completely forgiven this person, I did what any normal person would do.  I ducked behind the clothes rack and moved from clothes rack to clothes rack until I was out of the store.

Driving home, it occured to me that maybe I haven’t forgiven this person to the degree I thought I had.  If my emotions when I saw this person were strong enough to cause a physical reaction, maybe I haven’t forgiven to the degree I need to.  This caused my mind to go all kinds of places.  As a matter of fact.  I have waited several weeks to write this because I don’t have the answer.  I have often heard, “forgive, but don’t forget.”  To me that has meant forgive someone that maybe has taken advantage of you, but don’t let them do it again.  Now, like I said, I don’t have the answers, but I know of a specific time when a co-worker would pawn work off on me.  Once, as I was praying and practicing how I was going to tell this person off  refusing to do her work anymore, I felt clearly corrected and reprimanded that I was to show kindness and was to continue helping her in as many ways as possible.  In reverse order to help with my current delima, I decided, when all else fails, go to the Word.

Colossians 3 and Ephesians 4 both give us direction concerning forgiveness.  “Let all bitterness, wrath, anger, clamor, and evil speaking be put away from you, with all malice.  And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God in Christ forgave you.” Ephesians 4:31 & 32.  This first reminds me how wrong it is when I have wished for someone that hurt me to be equally or to an even greater extent hurt themselves.  I know this is wrong, and I have to control those thoughts.  I will admit the best way I have found to get those thoughts under control is to pray for the person who hurt me.  It is really hard to think evil against someone as you pray for them.

Aside from working on being kind and putting away my hate to the point where I don’t have to hide in the store, I want to focus on the last phrase in Ephesians 32.  “Forgive one another even as God in Christ forgave you.”  When God forgives us, our sins are completely forgotten.  “As far as the east is from the west, So far has He removed our transgressions from us.” Psalm 103:12.  “You will cast all our sins into the depths of the sea.” Micah 7:19.  I don’t know that I can forgive like this.  As a matter of fact, I know I can’t.  Not me, not me alone.  To truly forgive in this manner, I will require God’s help.  I can’t say I fully understand how you forgive someone that has done something unthinkable to you or to someone you love.  I’m working on this, but I do think I am to the point where I won’t hide behind the clothes racks at the store in order to avoid talking to a person.