Thursday, January 19, 2012

A familiar and rough pattern

My son loves to play on his bug mat. As it will occupy his attention for around 20-30 minutes and let me get stuff done, I love him to play on his bug mat. However, it always ends the same way. He will get the hiccups.

First, they will start -- and he'll play through them. He will ignore them. Then they get bigger and bigger, and it disrupts his play time a bit, but he fights through them. Then, they are too much for him, and he is angry and upset -- at least until he gets a nice drink and it cures the hiccups. And woe be to the daddy who tries to give him a drink before he's done playing on the bug!

Thus it is all our lives. There is a sad and dangerous pattern we can fall into. We will be going about our lives, enjoying things that are good and pleasing... and then there's a bit of sin, a bit of temptation that creeps in. And it impacts us, it shakes us, but we try to ignore it, try to pretend that those moments don't impact the rest of our life. And if anyone points out our sin - woe be to them! It is only when that sin, when it's impacts become shattering that we readily confess our sin and receive with joy.

This is why we are admonished so often to examine ourselves -- not so as to make sure that we are "good" people or to increase our piety - but so that we can confess the sin that creeps in, nip it in the bud, and prevent it from ruining our lives.

My son is learning -- I can give him milk a little bit more quickly. He'll even drink it to cut the hiccups knowing that he'll probably fall asleep. He learns.

Would that we would learn to examine ourselves and confess our sin!

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