The Struggle

Kid gloves off here, dear reader, just admit you are a sinner (defined as you still fail God).  If you think you are living a sin free life, well you have a different challenge to address than you will find in this post.

We struggle, individually and even together with others if we are open, over our sins and failures before God.  Struggle is the word here, because life as a Christian in a fleshly body is a struggle, for some hourly, daily, weekly, monthly - what ever your failure rate, we still struggle to overcome our baser natures and perform as we know we are called to be!  And we fail.  And we grow disillusioned.  I mean really, if God wanted me to overcome 100% of failures, then don't you think He would be a little more helpful?

To make matters even worse for us, when our sins are found out - and they usually are - we are horribly embarrassed and all the Christians about us act like chickens clucking their self-righteous tongues at us.  And let us not forget that we have plenty of success stories to stare us in the face!  Testimonies we hear in church or read in magazines and books, "I was saved/delivered miraculously from:"  file in the blank.  Alcoholism, drug addictions, sexual immorality of all kinds.  Yeah, we cluck out tongues at those and forget the lies, gossip, slander,  our many hatreds, our pride before God, disrespect for our parents, the list is unending of our failures before God, but those do not count aftrerall - they are my hidden problems - not the obvious ones XYZ has.

Unfortunately, just to level set the playing field here concerning sin -  the worse sin is Pride.  I am cursed by it, it crushes my relationship with God.  Guess what!  Because of that, I am actually worse before God than the greatest sinner whom has ever lived!  And just like whom ever that is (me maybe?) I still need forgiveness and supernatural strengthening daily, if not moment by moment.  So, for as many whom have walked with me in discipleship know, there is no condemnation ever from Kris.  And I can join you in your frustration at our mutual failures.

Thanks to the miraculous stories we are exposed to, we have frustration because God did this for someone else and not for me.  (Though I have yet to hear a testimony of someone miraculous cured of pride....)  It always seems to be something flashy, whatever the culture's big evil is of the time,  So if we are not careful, we can be drawn to unrealistic expectations for God to perform a miracle!  Nothing wrong with desiring one but God works to His good, not ours.  Your failing may just be what is needed one day to witness to a lost one, suffering the same as you.  Or to keep you humble and remind you when you are before Him just how much you actually need Him.

And we can even blame God when we don't have that miracle or instant deliverance from our stumbling block in our spiritual life.  After all God is not to blame if I am such a miserable creature that He will not heal me of this!  I am just too weak in my faith, do not have enough faith, too immature, too carnal, too much me, too whatever!  Any of those could be true but if you are seeking to end your sin life - probably not.

It is the struggle we engage in which is the point.  To use my Sunday School class as an example, I asked them one morning what their greatest struggle was.  I did not expect them offer "internet porn" and then have unanimous agreement!  A level of honesty I rarely encounter.  So we went off script and had a great session discussing this entire subject, much as we are here.  The struggle we are in against ourselves and sin - is normal.

Christianity is a religion based upon the struggles of two millenia of sinners just like you and me.  From the very beginning, think of Judas and his failure, Paul's struggle against whatever plagued him, Augustine's conflict with this sexual abandon, Martin Luther's fight against the demons of his mind, and even me as expressed above.

At this point, I revert back to one of my early mentors, Bill Bright.  He had a concept of what he called spiritual breathing.  You sin, so you exhale your confession to God (your agreement with Him that you suck and failed again) and then breathe in His Grace (forgiveness of your state).  I always liked that example, easy to remember, easy to do.

Keep up the struggle! and remember we wrestle not with flesh and blood but with spirits and principalities, whom sole desire is to derail you and your witness.