It is very easy to deem ourselves better than others. In our culture the universally proclaimed worst person ever is a perpetrator of a sexual crime against a child. It is, after all, so important to have someone who can be lifted up as proof that we are better than someone else. Then someone with celebrity status is involved and suddenly voices rise in favor of fairness, innocent until proven guilty and "after all, it was a long time ago."
This is, of course, the essence of the human condition---rage against the horrible monster until we start to wonder if the horrible monster is more like us than we like to think in ways that make us want to look away and pretend it is someone else's problem. The result is a culture that proclaims the right to participate in any sexual behavior unless it is one I find distasteful. No wonder our children feel they have lost the right to be asexual at any age.
I wonder how painful it is to be consider the unredeemable, utterly without value and without hope of reconciliation with family or community even if the underlying vulnerability comes from being a victim oneself.
But the Bible does not list big sins and small sins, but rather says we are all guilty of crimes against God. We don't trust God to have our back; we justify going our own way. We live lives of indifference, distrust, self-justification and "small sins" and sins of omission because we don't trust God to give us enough. We build walls to protect our broken hearts rather than baring them to God for healing. We try so hard to be independent and self-reliant we miss God's most abundant gifts, reserved for the meek, the trusting, those willing to be vessels to bring God's love to a broken world.
So, no matter what your "big sins" or your "little sins" or the sins that come from what has been left undone, turn your face to God, because God is bigger than our brokenness, wholly available to pour love and healing upon us, both able and delighted to show mercy to us all.
God has locked up all people in disobedience, in order to have mercy on all of them. Romans 11:32
This is, of course, the essence of the human condition---rage against the horrible monster until we start to wonder if the horrible monster is more like us than we like to think in ways that make us want to look away and pretend it is someone else's problem. The result is a culture that proclaims the right to participate in any sexual behavior unless it is one I find distasteful. No wonder our children feel they have lost the right to be asexual at any age.
I wonder how painful it is to be consider the unredeemable, utterly without value and without hope of reconciliation with family or community even if the underlying vulnerability comes from being a victim oneself.
But the Bible does not list big sins and small sins, but rather says we are all guilty of crimes against God. We don't trust God to have our back; we justify going our own way. We live lives of indifference, distrust, self-justification and "small sins" and sins of omission because we don't trust God to give us enough. We build walls to protect our broken hearts rather than baring them to God for healing. We try so hard to be independent and self-reliant we miss God's most abundant gifts, reserved for the meek, the trusting, those willing to be vessels to bring God's love to a broken world.
So, no matter what your "big sins" or your "little sins" or the sins that come from what has been left undone, turn your face to God, because God is bigger than our brokenness, wholly available to pour love and healing upon us, both able and delighted to show mercy to us all.
God has locked up all people in disobedience, in order to have mercy on all of them. Romans 11:32
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