S-I-N

Confession time.

I don’t know how I feel about the word “sin.”

I’ve stopped using it for a pretty long time.

It feels yucky.
It has been used to scare me into trying to trust a God who is blazing mad at me because of something I had no control over (“born in sin”).
It has gotten me to shame, guilt and make others afraid about a certain behavior I believed was right up its alley.

A friend of mine asked a bunch of us what we thought about this word.

Confession time.

All of us had lots to say.

It’s been in our lives for as long as we can remember.
We’ve replaced it with softer words like “brokenness,” “humanness,” etc.
It’s been misused and we’ve been harmed by it.  Gut-punch!

Yup.  I’ve been down-right harmed.

Shamed.
Guilted.
Scared.

Probably why I stopped using it.
Why I bristle every time I hear it.
I don’t want to perpetuate the madness.

After all, those are the BIG THREE that I have worked so hard to overcome with the help of God and His audacious love for me.

SHAME.
GUILT.
FEAR.

Yuck.

Or as my friend said, “EW!”

So what to do with this word, “sin”?

It’s an important word.
It’s a word that needs to be understood and redeemed.

For me anyway.

Recently, I picked up a book that has the word in the title. Might be why it’s all up in my grill at the moment.

I dove into the first chapter to see what this author had to say about it (or what I think he had to say…since we all pull out what grabs us and try to make sense of it).

Could it be this?

“Sin” is whatever we do that “goes against the grain of love.”

Small “l” and capital “L.”

love. Love.

Love God.  Love my neighbor. The BIG TWO. Or the BIG ONE.

LOVE.
LOVE.
LOVE.

The way to combat the BIG THREE.

NO SHAME in LOVE.
NO GUILT in LOVE.
NO FEAR in LOVE.

So, I’ve got to ask myself this every single day (plus ask for lots of help from LOVE HIMSELF):

How can I go WITH the grain of LOVE?

Not shaming.
Not guilting.
Not making others scared.

Building up.
Bringing healing.
Being a soft, safe place to land.

Going WITH the grain of LOVE.

Confession time.

I may be back to using this word I’ve avoided (at least in the privacy of my own heart).
We’ll have to see.
 
The End.

P.S.  Here’s the book (if you are so interested):

“Sinners in the Hands of a Loving God” by Brian Zahnd.