If you think about it, sin affects our lives more powerfully than anything else.
Our Own Sin...
When we sin ourselves, we are faced with guilt and shame and the knowledge that we have somehow damaged a relationship that is important to us, whether that relationship be between us and God, us and another person, or us and ourselves. More times than not, all three of those relationships are damaged when sin comes into the picture.
The time in my life when I felt the power of sin the most was when I was a teenager and one of my sins became public. Being someone who prided myself on being a “good girl,” the public awareness of my sin was humiliating and shameful.
(Warning: I'm about to chase as rabbit) You know, I almost hit delete just then when I typed the word “prided” because I know that, as a Christian, pride isn’t supposed to go along with anything that supposedly represents the grace God offers by allowing me to call myself a Christian...but I couldn’t delete it...because it’s true. This sin that I committed separated me from God because I let my pride separate me from God. At the time I would beg God over and over to forgive me, and I knew, even then, that it was I who was not being forgiving. But, in all honesty, as I type this at the age of 40, I realize that I couldn’t forgive myself because I damaged my own pride. I was angry with myself, and I focused that anger on my relationship with God. I blamed myself for destroying my witness. I blamed myself for turning my back on God. I blamed myself for not being the person I knew that I was. And that is really how I felt. Those are really the prayers that I prayed for a solid five years before I was able to let that anger and blame go. And while my sin did do all those things--hurt my witness, hurt my relationship with God, ruined my reputation as a “good girl”--part of the anger I felt toward myself was because I had lost my position. I had lost my status. Much of the guilt and shame came from genuine grief over my sin against God. I felt the weight of that grief long before my sin was made public. But once my sin did become public, something changed. Why was it worse than when I only had to struggle with the sin myself? The public knowledge of my sin affected my pride whereas the private realization of it did not. More than anyone else, the person I hurt with my sin was me.
During this time in my life, I struggled to believe I was worthy of God’s forgiveness, which led to a struggle to be involved in church like I had been before. I struggled to forgive myself, which led to many poor choices as I attempted to right something that I could not right on my own. I struggled to look my friends and family in the eyes, which led to broken relationships and relationships that would gradually fade into memories. My sin affected my entire life. And it didn’t just affect my life for that moment. It affected my life forever.
Other People's Sin...
Another reason sin is such a powerful force in our lives is that people sin against us. Sin hurts us. It makes us fearful, sad, angry, and broken. When someone sins against us, we lose trust in them and sometimes even trust in God. We are changed by that sin. We are damaged. Sin, our own or those of others, creates a barrier between us and the joy God has for us.
I’ve been hurt often in my life, as we all have. There are some wounds that take longer to heal than others, leaving a scar that others can see. Then there are smaller cuts, the scars of which are visible only to us. Both types of scars affect us. We become who we are in part because of these scars. Divorce, physical abuse, drug abuse, and a myriad of other sins that come into our lives at the hands of another change who we are and how we interact with those around us. When we are hurt, we have a new filter on the lens with which we look out at the world. Songs are a little sadder, the sunset is a little darker, rainy days are a little longer. But it's not just those "big sins" that change us. Being left out of a group at school because you aren't as athletic as they are, not being invited to a party because you don't drink, phone messages that are long left unanswered, these "smaller sins" can also create new filters for our lens. They, too, can make us cry a little harder, feel a little more insecure, and keep us from trying. But, thank God, that's not the end of this story....
God's Mercy...
While sin is a nasty word, a cancer to our souls, without it, we wouldn’t know God’s mercy. We wouldn’t be able to experience God’s forgiveness that comes from his overwhelming love for us. In turn, we wouldn’t know how desperately others need our forgiveness. Compassion, grace, generosity, kindness would be dimmed by our lack of sin because our perfection would not allow us to connect with others in the same way that a shared need for God’s mercy connects us. And not only does our own sin help us to see God's love better, the sins we suffer at the hands of others do as well. Remember those filters that appear on our lenses through which we see the world? Those lenses create empathy within us. When you've been hurt by a loved one's drug abuse, you look out at the world and see others who are being hurt by drug abuse. And not only do you notice them, you have a much deeper knowledge of what they need. You know how to help because you've been there. Have you been hurt by divorce? Statistics show that over half of all marriages end in divorce. This wound is all around you and needs your expertise at survival to help others get through this valley into which divorce has dumped them. If you had never been hurt in your life...if I had never been hurt in my life, how would I know what to say? How would I know what to do when those I love experience those same hurts? I wouldn't.
Is that why God allows us free will? In his complete wisdom did He know that we would need to mess up in order to truly love each other? Did he know that sin would draw us closer to the people we need in our lives? Did he know our battle with sin would draw us closer to Him? Of course He knew. Of course He knows. So what does this mean? God hates sin. Sin draws us closer to God. God uses sin. Sin separates us from God. We need to sin in order to have mercy on others. Sin damages our relationships and hurts others. This paradox is beyond comprehensible. It’s a cycle I can’t figure my way out of. We need to mess up, but we are not supposed to mess up.
Here is what I have determined. The truth is that we are human beings who are going to sin just as we are going to breathe. The truth is that those of us who belong to God are going to feel an overwhelming need to avoid sin, just as we feel an overwhelming need to avoid danger. Our human nature and the Holy Spirit living within us will battle until our dying day, BUT, on that day, the Holy Spirit will win. As long as we stay in the battle, we can know the Holy Spirit will win.
That is the story of sin in our lives. God uses even this thing that He hates, this thing that cannot even be in His presence, to demonstrate once and for all that HE WINS. He wins when we show compassion to one another. He wins when we forgive each other. He wins when we turn from sin and reach out to Him. He wins. Sin is not our story. God’s mercy is our story. And God’s mercy can only truly be understood when sin is in the picture. Amen.
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