No Duty To Sin

Okay, let me kind of recap what I have been up to the last couple of months. God has been helping me discover things about myself and my life that I needed to remove so I could have a more authentic relationship with Him. One of those things - well, I guess this is less like showing me what I need to remove (which He has already helped me through), but more of a refinement of that lesson. The lesson I am talking about is loneliness. For...gosh...probably since puberty, I went through seasons of feeling lonely. If I was with someone when this season hit, it always spelled trouble for the relationship. The guy was never good enough. He could have been the most amazing and giving and sensitive guy on the planet, and he couldn't "fix" me. When it got bad enough, when the pressure of me making the poor guys perform to make me happy coupled with their feelings of inadequacy collided, well, the relationship ended and it was usually quite poorly. Related to this, something came across my mind yesterday - much thanks to John Piper. In this sermon, he stated, “Sin is what you do when your heart is not satisfied with God. No one sins out of duty. We sin because it holds out some promise of happiness. That promise enslaves us until we believe God is more to be desired than life itself.” (you can find the sermon here: http://www.desiringgod.org/resource-library/sermons/no-one-will-take-your-joy-from-you Can anyone say PROFOUND?!?!? Seriously, I stopped sewing, rewound it, and listened again...and then again. And then I wrote it down. Now, since this is still very fresh in my brain, I may not expand on it all that well, but I'm going to give it a shot anyway. What is sin? Anything that takes your affections away from God. Food, sex, drugs, alcohol, video games, sleep, friends, family (yes, I said it), movies, sports, clothes, makeup, cars, partying, working out, laziness, money, jobs, volunteering, people pleasing....there are probably just as many to list as there are people that exist, these are just the ones that come to mind immediately. Let me take an example from my own life: Being in a relationship. Okay, God made us relational people. He created Adam, but Adam being alone wasn't good, so God created a helpmate, Eve. And things were perfect, and then they weren't. Some people in the Bible (take Paul for example) were meant to be alone. Not that they were ALONE alone, because they were relational to other people on a non-romantic level, but they were alone in the relationship department. And they were satisfied with that because they could serve the Lord without hindrance. Now, that is the right way to look at not being in a relationship. And then there is me who went through seasons of loneliness because I saw that I was alone and I felt like my "situation" (aka: my LIFE) was broken. For three months, God took me through my past and was gracious enough to show me why men in the past RAN FOR THEIR LIVES from me. Seriously, I can't say that I blame them after examining my past behavior. Needy, empty, and broken. Kind of like a train wreck with less steel involved. But then He did something even more amazing. He showed me that my life without the circumstances DOES MATTER! That I have a life that doesn't revolve around anyone or anything! And He even showed me how the life I have is beneficial. I don't have to ask for permission to quilt, I don't have anyone else to make plans for me, I don't have to deal with the finances of two people, the stresses of two people, cleaning up after more people, cooking for more people, the dreaded "in-law's", etc... I quilt when I am able (which is fairly frequently), I only have to clean up after my son and I, cook for my son and I, and I can volunteer whenever I want. Sweet set up! Does this mean that I want to be single for the rest of my life? No. God put it in me from a very young age that I want to get married, however I am not going to allow that feeling to override my love and devotion to Him. I know that there is no man on this planet that can sustain me like God can. To refine that a little more, while I will go on dates from time to time, if the guy that I am on a date with isn't as strong in his faith as I am, or stronger, I won't go on a second date with him. Though it would feel good to my flesh to keep the dude around, I know that, ultimately, it wouldn't work out. The next sin that I am working on? Food. Overeating, to be exact. This is something that is new for me to work on, but I have a feeling that God will get me through it just as He got me through loneliness. The more I allow Him to change me, the more I trust Him to do so lovingly. So, overeating will be the next area of my life that I ask God to work on with me. And I could go on and on, but I fear this is already a long enough post. I will leave you here, praying that the words I was inspired to write will help you start down the path of understanding what may be hindering you from getting out of the pit you are in and moving on to the next amazing time in your life. Much love Brandy

Comparison

In my last post, I realized that I said that I was talking about Lent, except I never really did. It was more of a 4 month re-cap. Oops.

So, here's a brief overview of what I have learned about Lent. The ashes on the forehead represent mourning for sin (because lighting one's self on fire is probably not the best way to go about this). They did this in the Bible, except they would wear sack cloth, cover themselves in ashes and pray for days and days.

Lent is a season of repentance. Not just repenting for the sins that we are already aware of, but also leaning into God and asking Him to reveal the sins in our heart that are buried for various reasons. Repenting is not just, "God, I'm sorry." It is almost accepted in society that saying, "I'm sorry" means that you are forgiven of your sins and free to go on about your way, and you can apologize as often as you need to for the same thing. Repenting is a turning away from that sin, whether it is not buying the food you know you will binge on or not visiting porn sites or not hanging out with people who will lead you down a dark path.

So, Lent = season of repentance. It is 40 days long, which represents Jesus' 40 days in the wilderness. It leads up to Easter (the resurrection).

People fast during Lent. I chose to fast from Facebook. While that may seem petty, think about how many hours you are surfing around Facebook. Some people may not be there longer than 10 minutes. I, on the other hand, could spend HOURS. Why? Because I was looking at other people's lives and comparing them to mine.

Let me just say that I have come to realize that I can no more look at my life and all it encompasses and compare it to that of someone else's, than I can compare it to the life of a tree and get an accurate portrayal of where I am on this MAN MADE timeline.

It can't happen. GOD has me where GOD needs me. While I want to get married and have a couple of more children, if me being single glorifies God more, then I'd rather be single. If me being married with more children glorifies God more, then I'd rather be married. Lent-ing in this fashion has really brought me to submission and truly praying for God's grace and glory to be revealed through my life.

I can tell you this: I am a LOT more settled now than I have been in years. And God gets ALLLLL the credit for that!

God's amazing grace for you my friends!