Unwanted Company
Soul Snack 8/1 ... Unwanted Company
If deep distress visits regularly then it is accompanied by a most undesired companion, sadness. Delight is absent. Too often this companion sears the spirit and and again strangles the soul. Healthy 'without', but diseased 'within'.
Daily I diet on The Word. Energetically I tackle the path of righteousness. I seek God honouring purity. Daily I pray for His spirit's infilling. For decades now He has walked ever so gently, patiently and closely beside me. Yet, most sadly, I still sin! Even sin that is decades old rears again, unfinished and stlll undealt with.
The failure of the chance errant word, the tired grace-devoid response, or the carnal greed that just so instantly appears, clearly remains. Shame and condemnation now arise as malevolent companions. Failure feels immediate, the sadness instant.
And so deliberately a fresh opportunity for sin crouches at my door. It still seeks to devour me. Recovered from my past, it aims at my present to rob me now, and then destroy my future.
"... if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door." (Genesis 4:7)
If only my readiness for Him was as deep as my readiness for sin; surely then my sin would wiped out, Jesus would always win!
Can only a sage see this crouching unwanted guest?
O Lord, that I would know my sin prior to my action. Please warn me. O Lord only in you and with you can I know sin's absence today. Amen