Being Human Versus Sinning
Thanks for all of the notes and prayers! It’s been a great day and I’m still in the thick of research and review. One of my files led me to an old blog post that I thought I’d share with you again because it gave me a lot to think about.
The title of the post was “Being Human Versus Sinning” and I wrote it back in 2009, when my oldest daughter (Sophia) was just about six years old.
Here it is in its entirety:
——-
November 12, 2009
Sophie and I had a long conversation this morning about the differences between life in a fallen world as a fallen human being andintentional sin.
It was prompted by a pattern I’m seeing develop in her heart and behavior: After being given an instruction or correction, she isover-reacting and responding with very strong emotions that often manifest themselves as anger. She tries to hold it in and stuff it down, but we both know it’s there.
Thankfully, I’ve been blessed by such wonderful books as Uprooting Anger, The Heart of Anger, and Don’t Make Me Count to Three, so I knew that her angry responses were just the presenting issues—the proverbial tip of the iceberg as it were.
The real issue (as always) was a heart issue. And the only hope we ever have for heart issues must begin and end with the gospel.
Thankfully, Ella was in the mood to just play quietly between us on the bed, because we spent a good hour talking, crying, praying, and reading Scripture together. I don’t think I can remember everything we discussed, but here are a few of the highlights:
1. We used the example (hypothetical) of walking down the sidewalk, tripping, and hurting someone else.
– In the first example, I was walking carefully and paying attention—but I still tripped and hurt Sophie’s leg badly. How should I respond? Should I apologize and try to help her feel better? Yes. Should I beat myself up and say, “I’m such a horrible person!”, and have the rest of our day ruined by my mistake? No. I should give myself grace because, although I feel very sad that I hurt Sophie, it was completely unintentional. It was simply life in a fallen world. A mistake. And grace covers not only our sins but our mistakes too.
– In the next example, I was carrying a bunch of boxes while I walked down the sidewalk and Fred had just given me some wise counsel to be careful and possibly consider not carrying so many boxes all at once because I could trip and hurt myself or hurt someone else. He hadn’t commanded me, but he did instruct me and if I had been wise and listened to him, I could have avoided hurting Sophie. But I didn’t.
In that situation, my culpability is higher because I made an intentionally foolish decision and as a result, I accidentally hurt Sophie. It was still an accident, sure. But I could have avoided it if I had listened to counsel. So I need to ask Sophie to forgive me and strive to grow in wisdom by learning from my mistake.
– But in the final example, I was driving my car 70 miles per hour in a 55 mph zone. I knew the law and I intentionally disobeyed it. And then I caused an accident that hurt someone.
– Whoa! Now we’re in an entirely different realm, aren’t we? Because I sinned. I didn’t do what I was supposed to do. I need to confess to God and to others. I am called to repent and change.
(Then we had a little side lesson on the doctrine of sin—especially what “lack of conformity” means. It involved playdoh and a bouncy ball and how the playdoh CONFORMED to the bouncy ball, etc.)
2. And what is the first step of repenting? Sophie said, “Feeling bad about your sin.” So, of course, I had to correct her.
No. The first part of repenting is not feeling bad about your sin. The first step of repentance is to remember. What do we remember? Who GOD is and who WE are in Christ.
This was quite a telling point in our conversation because when I said, “Sophie, we must remember who we REALLY are. Who are we? How would you complete this sentence: ‘I am …’”? Sophie said, “A sinner.”
!!OUCH!! My momma heart cringed. Oh! How I do NOT want that to be the first thing Sophie thinks. So I said, “Yes, Sophie, you are a sinner. But MORE importantly, what are you? You are LOVED. Chosen. Holy. Dearly, dearly loved.
3. This led into an entire conversation about just HOW MUCH she is loved, especially when she is sinning. That when she is caught in sin, God’s love for her and my love for her do not change, waver, or stop. In fact, our love compels us to draw even CLOSER to her, to help her, to rescue her because we love her so much.
The example I used for this was picturing the three of us (Sophia, Ella, and me) at a park when Ella is JUST starting to walk as a little toddler. I asked Sophie what she would do if Ella ignored my instruction to stay away from the high playground equipment and suddenly found her little toddler self WAY up high on the very, very edge of the play area. Would Sophie say, “You are a TERRIBLE little girl, Ella! You should be ashamed of yourself. Momma said not to do that and you did it anyway and now you could be REALLY hurt. You are SO bad! You’d better start being good and THEN I’ll love you again.”
Sophie said, “Of course not! I would RUN to her and snatch her back from the edge and comfort her and hold her. But, yes, when I knew she was safe, I would tell her not to do that again. And I would take her to you because she probably would need a painful consequence so she would really learn her lesson and be safe in the future.”
“Would you stop loving her when she was bad?” I asked.
“No!” Sophie replied.
“Would you want Ella to spend the rest of our day at the park hiding her face, crying, and saying what a terrible little girl she is?” I wondered.
“Of course not!” Sophie said.
“Sophie, it’s the same thing for YOU,” I explained. “When you are caught in sin, you are putting yourself in DANGER. And since it’s my duty to help keep you safe and train you to see that the way of the sinner is HARD, but there are blessings in obedience, I do discipline and instruct you. But I do so BECAUSE I love you. It is my love that COMPELS me to rescue you. I don’t stop loving you, step back, and wait for you to get your act together. I run after you, just like you ran after Ella.
Then we read some Scriptures that affirmed all of these truths and we were just in the middle of praying when Fred came and joined us.
Oh! What a wise husband I have. I’ll close this blog post with his counsel to Sophie …
After hearing about all that happened in our morning and the various lessons we were discussing, he also encouraged Sophie to remember that God has apparently made her heart with passionate, strong emotions. She feels passionately happy and passionately sad. This is great for making music and creating all sorts of interesting things in life (poetry, writing, art)—but it also means that she needs to remember her tendency will be to feel things very, very strongly. So she needs to guard against that and be wise, especially when she’s prone to feel overly sad and self-condemning.
(What a good reminder and lesson for me too!)
There is grace for our personalities, our frailties, weaknesses, mistakes—and yes, for our sin too. We can be forgiven because God is a forgiving, gracious God.
Blessings on your day!
– Tara B.