While dumping a can of coins into a coin machine at my bank I struck up a conversation with a policeman. Just then the coin machine broke. Laughingly he said, “Hang on for a moment I’ll tase it for you.” This prompted me to ask him if he had ever tased anyone. “Yeah,” he said, “me.” He went on to tell me about tussling with someone and while trying to taser the bad guy, the policeman ended up tasering himself. Then because the taser immobilized his muscles he couldn’t move it off of himself. Ouch! So much for being our own worst enemy.
So often in life we do it to ourselves. We overeat. We don’t exercise. We speed. We tell tales about others. We don’t get enough sleep. The list can go on and on. In the course of a life most of the damage we have o\inccurred has been self-induced. True, on occasion we are genuine victims, but those events are not as common as we would like people to think. It is so much easier to find someone else or something else to blame than to be brutally honest with ourselves. Being a teacher I hear endless excuses for why work is not on time. No one uses “the dog ate it anymore.” Now it’s the computer’s fault. If computers were as culpable as we tell it none of us would dare use one.
If we really want God’s grace, if we really want forgiveness, if we really want real inner growth, we have to own-up. That doesn’t mean running around telling everyone how bad you are. What it means is quietly telling God how bad you are. The two of you can work it out.
Written by Roger Bothwell on March 11, 2011
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org