Category Archives: Sin

Guilty?

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Yesterday I was back in an airport, looking forward to a visit with our son Hans and his family in north England. Arriving early, I bought a McDonalds salad, then settled in at my gate for lunch.

Most of the 200 chairs in the waiting area were empty since a crowd had just boarded, and the two women at the desk were closing up shop. Suddenly the ramp door burst open, and a 20-something guy rushed out, loping in my direction. I looked up, fork in hand, and watched him run past 10 rows of empty seats directly up to me, a security man trailing him.

Not sure what was happening, I took hold of my salad and got ready to jump. “You’re in my seat!” he said, panting with emotion. Surrounded by a room full of empty chairs, I found that hard to believe. “Are you sitting on it?” he said.

Thinking about Caesar dressing going all over my traveling clothes I said, “On what?”

“My phone!” he said. “Under you!”

By now the security guard had arrived and the young man, conflicted between the urgency to find his phone, his plane about to leave, and the security guy, bent down and began feeling around on the floor beneath me. I stood, trying to hang onto my salad, wondering if maybe he was right.

 

As the two women at the desk were on their way over, I was relieved to see I hadn’t been sitting on anything, but he was disappointed. “Oh never mind!” he said in frustration, pushing past the guard and the women toward his flight.

A minute later I watched his plane push back from the gate and wondered if he was looking at me through the window, thinking his phone was in my purse. The bottom line was that he’d accused me of something I didn’t do. Not that he had come right out and said it, but I’m sure he thought it.

The ultimate in being wrongly accused was Jesus. Labeled as a blasphemer against the one true God, his accusers couldn’t have been more off the mark. That same God was his beloved Father, the one sustaining him through life as a human. Jesus loved him intensely and obeyed his every command with perfection, all the way through to an undeserved death.

How must Jesus have felt to be wrongly accused of something contrary to everything he stood for and the essence of who he was? When the young man accused me of sitting on his phone, I wondered if maybe he was right. Jesus, though, never wondered about his innocence. Even after being arrested, accused and beaten, he was still sure of his innocence.

We humans are riddled with real reasons to feel guilty in many categories, yet when accused, we rush to defend ourselves, sometimes stretching what little truth is in us to make our point. Jesus knew he was blameless, responding to his accusers with the silence of certainty.

Of course none of us can be as untarnished as Jesus, but the more we make the difficult choices to reject sinful possibilities, the more we can enjoy the good feeling of guiltlessness, as well as finding it easier to tell the truth.

I am confident of one thing, though. If that young man calls his cell phone and someone answers, it won’t be me.

“No one has ever seen God, but the one and only Son, who is himself God and is in closest relationship with the Father, has made him known.” (John 1:18)

Patrolling the Piles

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Our dog Jack is a good buddy, so I completely understand why so many people own these loyal, loving pets. But when I was growing up, leashing a dog was only appropriate in crowded metropolitan areas.

In the suburbs dogs roamed freely, getting acquainted with each other and holding regular “club meetings” in the neighborhood without human intervention. As for carrying plastic bags to gather up still-warm piles of doggie poo? No one had thought of that. But times have changed.

Jerry Seinfeld described our current pick-up custom this way:

“If aliens are watching this through telescopes, they’re going to think the dogs are the leaders of the planet. If you see two life forms, one of them is making a poop, the other one’s carrying it for him, who would you assume is in charge?”

But the messy job of cleaning up after dogs has evolved into big business for willing takers. A quick Google search turned up hundreds of scooping entrepreneurs: Doggie Dung Squad, Poop 911, Doody Dude, Pet Butler, Tidy Turf, Scoop De-Doo, Tour of Doody, and many more. But what if a dog owner neither wants to pick up poo nor pay someone else to do it?

One building manager in New Hampshire had a negative relationship with 300 residential dogs because of what they produced. Debbie managed 375 apartments, and because the complex was dog-friendly, she had no trouble finding renters. The bad news was more than 2000 poops each week, many of which weren’t picked up by dog owners.

Maintenance men, frustrated by un-owned piles, complained to Debbie, who had no way to know who’s poo belonged to who.

Enter a company named Poo Prints.

Using the science of DNA, Poo Prints offered to cheek-swab resident dogs, then provide kits to DNA-test errant piles. Debbie signed on and insisted lease holders bring dogs in for swabbing, then announced $100 fines per uncollected pile. The entire complex was 99% poo-free in only one month.

I sympathize with Debbie but also with dog owners, since I sometimes justify Jack’s “product placement” (in the woods) as a reason to let it be. The question is, why do many of us feel we can be the exception to a rule?

It goes back to toddlerhood when each of us operated on a me-first basis and believed what we wanted trumped what everyone else wanted. It was sin then and still is now, an awfully hard habit to shake. As a matter of fact, shaking will never eradicate it. Scripture says, “I know that good itself does not dwell in me.” (Romans 7:18a)

Once we recognize that, we become willing to ask Another for help. Romans also says, “The Spirit helps us in our weakness.” (8:26) When we see ourselves being above the rules, it’s not an indicator of worth but of weakness. And God is happy to assist… by knocking us down a peg or two.

In Debbie’s case, a hefty fine was the exact knock-down needed.

“Humble yourselves before the Lord, and he will lift you up.” (James 4:10)

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Passion Gone Wrong

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My grandson Micah Nathan is obsessed with wheels. I remember our 4 boys feeling the same way, flattening themselves to the floor to get a road’s eye view of tiny toy wheels. Maybe it’s in boy-DNA.

Micah has strong opinions about each miniature vehicle at my house, even at only 22 months. His favorite is a tiny bike-like motorcycle, followed by a plastic dump truck. He assigns different cars to different people. “This is Mommy’s car. This is Daddy’s.”

But yesterday we saw that even a toddler can take things too far. Linni and I were chatting when Micah approached with a tiny wheel in his pudgy hand, which must have come off one of the small cars. With his limited language he tried to share his thoughts, but before we could figure them out, he popped the wheel into his mouth, gave a few chews, and swallowed it.

Wheels are Micah’s passion.

All of us are passionate about something and are usually willing to sacrifice something else to pursue it. For example, I’d rather write than sleep or eat. Someone else might be passionate about music or cooking or reading or any other worthwhile pursuit. It’s all based on what bents and abilities we have and on the way God wires us.

But in thinking about our passions, we might ask ourselves several questions:

  • How far am I willing to go for the sake of my passion?
  • Is every passion worth pursuing?
  • What if my passion isn’t positive?

Scripture makes reference to passions gone wrong, describing them as the “passionate desires and inclinations of our sinful nature.” God wasn’t the one who wired those into us; we have to take the blame ourselves.

So what are the passions of a sinful nature? Name any sin, and that’s what it is. Whatever sins we can’t route out of our lives are passions gone wrong. God instructs us to “nail them to his cross.” In other words, we’re to exercise control through Christ’s power as our Savior. He offers that, but it’s up to us to take advantage.

We might say, “But there’s nothing wrong with my passion for [fill-in-the-blank].” God says unless all of our passions are pulled out from under our control and put under his, they’re on the wrong side of the passion-ledger. Since he knows we’re all pretty good at taking things to extremes, even good things, he promises to help us with passion-control by providing his grace and strength as needed to get the job done. When we ask, he gives it.

Meanwhile, Linnea and I are having trouble finding Micah’s favorite motorcycle. Maybe we should start watching his diapers.

”Because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.” (2 Peter 1:4)