A Confession

I blew it again today. I did not represent God well. I was judgmental. I was a gossip. And I was all this as I spoke to a person who has a shakey faith already. Lord, I’m so sorry. I failed have you... again. Father, please forgive me, but more than that, please make up for my failure to the person I was speaking with today.

Shortly after I failed God so miserably, I went to my class, The Truth Project. Part of the lesson was about “knowing” God. God is so big, so deep, so wide, that it takes us a lifetime to even scratch the surface in knowing Him.

But if I really know Him, I will reflect Him. As I listened, I was reminded of my fresh failure, and I felt sick. I grieved that I not only let God down, I really let my friend down. And I revealed a lack of my knowledge of God. My failure revealed how far I am from Him. I call myself a Christian. I am even involved in ministry, and yet I completely misrepresented Him today—all because I have not invested the time and energy necessary to know God on a level that would cause me to reflect Him rather than my judgmental, gossipy self.

I feel like I broke God’s heart today and that breaks my heart. I need to be broken.

I'm hitting my knees before God.

Lavishing Grace, Not Judgement

As I sat down to write in my journal this morning, I knew it was going to be a whining entry about how hard I work when "everyone" else seems to be fighting against me and "no one" else seems to care. I wanted to get in touch with my inner feelings.

But I decided to look back at my devotional first. My eyes were drawn to a few lines I had underlined several days ago, "No sin is worse than the sin of self pity, because it obliterates God and puts self-interest upon the throne. It opens our mouths to spit out murmurings and our lives become craving spiritual sponges, there is nothing lovely or generous about them."

I tweeted the first half of that quote and said, "Ouch, Oswald, you're killing me!" Obviously, something in me needs to be killed. Yes, I need to be in touch with what I'm feeling, but there is a fine line that, once crossed, leads to a pit of self-pity and judgement of others. I don't want my mouth to be spitting out murmurings or my life to become a craving spiritual sponge that has nothing lovely or generous about it.

Last weekend, as I was thinking and, yes, saying (perhaps spitting) some unflattering and judgemental things about a Christian brother, I suddenly got a vision of Satan and his demons laughing and cheering because what I was doing was so pleasing to them. Dear Lord! I was mortified! I pray that every time I open my mouth I will remember that picture and re-order my words accordingly. For a child of God to please the enemy and his legions by speaking against another child of God must pierce the heart of God. I don't know which is worse, picturing the enemy cheering or seeing the disappointment on God's face as the defamatory words come spewing out of my mouth.

So today, I will not write a journal entry filled with self-pity or derogatory comments aimed at someone else to try and feel better about myself. Today I want to focus on the beauty and wealth of the grace that God has lavished on me so that I will learn to lavish that grace on others. I want to be, as Oswald Chambers says, "stamped with God's nature," so that, "His blessings will come through [me] all the time."