The weather has a way of leaving us scratching our heads sometimes. One day, we start the day bundled in fleece jackets and hoodies. Within hours, we've shed our coats and go about our business in short sleeves and turn on the air-conditioning.
Shedding our coats is easy. We undo a few buttons or a zipper, slip our arms from the sleeves, and we are free.
If only shedding bad habits and sins were as easy. Mine have a way of clinging to me, much like a bad smell. Habits and sins are tenacious creatures. They like to hold on, to cleave to me even when I try my best to push them away.
When I ponder upon this, I realize that perhaps I don't really want to push them away. Maybe I want to hold onto them much as a child clings to a favorite blankie. Bad habits and sins are comfortable. I grow accustomed to them. I embrace their familiarity. I accept them as part of me and, when challenged about them, shrug them off with that ultimate excuse, "That's just the way I am."
Fortunately, the Father has provided a way to rid myself--indeed, all of us--of our sins. Repentance, that word we learned early on in Sunday School, is real. It is attainable. It is a miracle.
So, for today, I am grateful for the miracle of repentance.
Repentance--the diet pill that gets us out of the fat jeans of sin.
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