One of Them

             For the director of music. For Jeduthun. A psalm of David.

Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. (Psalm 62:1)

 

          Suppose that you were to walk into your kitchen at some point and discover one of them there. For you, it might be a cockroach, spider, mouse, fruit fly – whatever it is, it’s there, and if there’s one, there are probably more. I’m sure there have been sitcom episodes about the lengths one will go to get rid of some pest. Whatever it is, it must be destroyed. 

        

              And even once it has been, we peer around corners or turn lights on suddenly, sure we’re going to find at least one more of them that we missed. Eventually, we get over it and treat our kitchen as we always have.

          Sometimes, it seems as though we think we should have the same response to a sin in our lives. And as with invading critters, if there’s one, there are likely more. On finding one, we are tempted to scream and run, but if we don’t destroy it right away, it will multiply. For a time at least, our lives become an ongoing hunt for the sins that infest us. It’s a natural response, but the result is that we see it as our responsibility to overcome the sin, and our focus becomes the sin and the sinner rather than God.

          There is no suggestion here that we should shrug our shoulders about sin in our lives. Instead, there is the question of whether what Dallas Willard calls “sin management” is the goal. If our salvation comes from the Lord, then should our response to sin be “Sorry, God, I’ll go to war against it and myself”? Or, should our response be, “Eek! Father, a sin! Help! Save me!”

          The cry for help doesn’t free us from doing what God directs us to do about the sin. It just shifts the focus from the sin and from ourselves as the hero of the story to God.