The Consequences of Your Choices Don't Wash Away

I didn't have a choice.
There was no way around it.
I didn't realize it until it was too late.
I take it back.
Let's start again.
The Devil made me do it.


We All Make Easy Mistakes

Mistakes?  We've all made them.  Bad choices?  Yep.  We make wrong turns in life, we ask for "do-overs" that don't ever succeed in erasing a mistake or a hurt.  When we do or say the wrong thing we can't take it back, make it disappear, change it into something else, fix it ... or forget it completely.

Whatever I choose to do counts.

Every action has a consequence.  Everything I say, do and think matters.  Every choice or preference leaves its own specific feedback in the lives of everyone involved ... even when I think I'm making choices that affect only me.  My choices affect my husband, too, whether he knows of them or not.

We all nod in agreement when we think of us all lumped in together, doing small "this or that" items that we know we shouldn't and then having to suffer consequences.  If I forget to return library books on time I will pay a fine. If I eat too much my clothing will not fit (like now, for instance). If I don't keep up with my family's laundry none of us will have clean clothes to wear.  Simple and straightforward, what I do matters.  I get it.  I understand.  No problem.

But.


Got Secrets?

It feels a lot different when sin sits deeper than the surface.  The hidden or secret things a person may do -- on the sly or within the confidence of another person -- that we don't want anyone else to discover don't come out of hiding easily, even when talked to nicely and offered a cookie.  Those secret sins, if uncovered, will change the way others perceive us.  Those secret sins begin to leak, like the juices from rotting food in the refrigerator, and cause people to sniff, wonder and search for the problem.  Soon, the whole place begins to smell funny -- you just can't stop it until you reach in there, find the bad piece, and remove it for good.

Recently, a couple of officers of our Parent-Teacher Organization at school found their secrets uncovered in a check-writing scheme, in which tens of thousands of dollars left the group's bank account and went to their personal accounts.  Someone caught a funny smell in the air, began searching, and within a period of time, the rotten thing showed.  The school district removed it, and now the police have the job of handling the situation as the law dictates.  Whether a fine or jail time comes to them in the future, the ladies will pay a penalty.

These women can find forgiveness from God, but the aftermath will take years to rebuild in the community and maybe in their families, as well.  Excuses they offered don't matter.  They lied and stole.  They have to get busy doing whatever it takes to show that they can handle trust again.

Secret sin has to be removed in order to live in harmony with our mates (as well as others around us) and with God.  God won't bless us with sin in the way, and our husbands won't be able to figure out our odd behavior, which secretiveness brings, no matter how we try to conceal the falsehoods and live as if nothing foul is leaching from the back of the refrigerator.

Choosing to deviate from God's path for you may appear in your life as:

- financial indiscretion or a shopping addiction.
- eating (too much or too little) in secret.
- having an opposite-sex friendship that feels fulfilling and seems innocent.
- lying -- of all kinds and sizes.
- engaging in an affair (emotional or sexual) with subsequent blame/rationale.
- uncontrolled electronic/technological activity.
- insert your secret sin here:  _________________


You Can Find Forgiveness and You Will Have Work to Do!

No matter what your poor choice(s),  your deviation from the right path, God will forgive -- if you ask with a contrite (sincerely sorry) heart.  A mighty thought to have is that all of us have the power to change, through His grace and mercy, and to climb out of the pits we have dug to higher and higher ground, led by Him, not by man.

But we won't be able to change the consequences, erase the wrongs we did, or make everyone touched by our thoughtlessness and selfishness feel warm and fuzzy, hunky-dory, and right as rain in one prayerful act.  

There's nothing like forgiveness to cheer up a human being.  At the same time, there's nothing like dealing with the consequences of our actions to keep us mindful of just how far our own selfishness and tunnel vision took us, and then, we see our husbands, children, friends and family alongside our jagged pathway, as if thrown from the vehicle ... bedraggled, hurt (maybe gravely), confused, distrustful, and in shock.

God will forgive me.  Then the hard part begins.

I have to work really hard to get back the devotion, trust, love, and support of those whom I may have ignored, hurt, betrayed, deceived, or confused.  Did I say "work really hard?"  I tend to understate things when I'm not overstating them.  The truth is, I will not get off anywhere close to easy, and should I?  Absolutely not.   If I have acted carelessly, I should have to prove that I can act carefully.  I must take as much time as my victims need in order to regain their trust and all the other attributes that I have lost by my own choices.  I will live under a microscope for as long as it takes to show that I know I have done wrong, that I want to change, and that I work for that change.


God will not wash away the consequences.  The sin?  Yes.  The rest is up to me.  I must sincerely work at changing myself through prayer, learning, studying, sharing and communicating well with the man I married, as well as with those people in my life who should be in it.  Those I have invited into my life via the intrusive, wrong behaviors, I must usher out and close the door for good.  For the good of everyone involved!


A Sin Is a Sin, No Matter How Small

While committing adultery or grand theft don't seem the same as holding a library book too long or driving faster that the posted speed, all have consequences that we must face.

Continuing to try to hide, working to keep up appearances, hoping no one mentions a difficult subject or moves in the direction of your secret is no way to live.  Make the changes now.  Take on your own sin, take it to the Father of All and lay it out before him.  Every stinking, rotten detail.  And ask His forgiveness.

Then, get to work.  You can do it.  Know how I know?  You'll have God on your side.

I Forgive You ... This Is Not the End of the Story.

This past Sunday, our pastor's sermon focused on forgiveness as a command of God.  God does not suggest or imply that we should forgive.  He commands that we forgive -- and without following in the Creator's footsteps on this one, we will not receive forgiveness.  If we aren't merciful and just to forgive, He won't do that for us, either.

Bring on the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant of Matthew 18: 21-35.

In this parable, we learn that a king demands repayment of a very large loan given his servant. The servant cannot repay, and the king orders the servant and his family sold to repay the debt.  The servant begs for time to pay. The king's heart softens; he forgives the debt.

The forgiven servant goes on his way and meets a fellow servant who owes him a debt. He physically chokes the man, demanding immediate and full payment.  The other man begs for mercy, but the forgiven man has him thrown in prison until he comes up with the cash.

Learning of this from eye-witnesses, the king has the formerly forgiven man tortured until he pays his debt in full.

In verse 35, Christ states, 

"This is how my heavenly Father will treat each of you unless you forgive your brother or sister from your heart."

Whammo.  Did you feel that?

The parable stems from a question the apostle, Peter, asked.  How many times should I forgive my brother who sins against me?  Christ cited the well-known "seventy times seven times" -- which seems shockingly many to most people.  Four hundred ninety times to forgive one person for doing the same thing again and again?  Four hundred ninety times to forgive one person for four hundred ninety separate offenses?  The message does not focus on the calculations, but on the forgiving.  Offer it.  Mean it.  Make the effort and feel the difference.  Do it as many times as you must, and don't stop offering mercy to another person.

God doesn't stop offering it to you ... get the picture?

And what do we find as the alternative if we don't forgive?

As humans, we don't feel an automatic desire to forgive.  The minute we perceive wrong-doing toward ourselves we begin to think vindictively.  How can I "get my enemy back" for this?  Our wheels begin to turn in a negative direction, we grease them by remembering the awful deeds done, and many of us give the whole works a tune-up regularly, sharing the terrible, horrible, unforgivable event with those who will offer us what we truly desire:  sympathy.

As we rage inside, cry outside, feel degraded and spiteful, and work very, very hard on feeling like a victim, we create our very own torture chamber.
No one else can see or feel it the way we do.
We may lose or gain weight, begin having health problems, feel anxious or depressed.

In actuality, refusing to offer forgiveness can bring the same result as not asking forgiveness for our own sins.  The results devastate the one who holds the boxful of hurt, no matter if he gave or received.  We lose the listening ear of God, and he cannot look upon us in our sin.  


Our humanness shuts the door on forgiveness because it feels like giving in or giving up.  At the upper limits, it feels like paying high respect to someone who does not deserve it.  Why would I give such a gift to someone who has not earned it?  I prefer that someone earn my forgiveness when I have suffered so greatly.

I want to exact as much pain and suffering from the perpetrator as he inflicted on me.  I want to witness his suffering, not just hear about it.  I want to measure the dose and force-feed it.  I want an eye for an eye.  I want restitution, not just once, but over and over again.

If left to my own devices, I will never succeed in righting a wrong or in feeling freed from the bonds of what I suffered at the hands of someone else if I insist on rehashing it, reliving it and repeating it to anyone who will listen.


What of listening?  There are three ways to listen, as I experience it.  We listen with our ears, through reading the Bible and "hearing" God's messages for us, and through the mouthpiece of God found in others who cross our paths and say things that give us that Spirit nudge.  When we listen we will not hear God ever say something like, "Please wallow in self-pity for now."  We will not hear him say, "I will wipe away all the pain from this and you can go on as if nothing ever happened."  We will hear him say, "Forgive.  Forgive as I have forgiven you."

The truth:  forgiveness frees us.  Those bonds of memory do not affect the person who inflicted the pain.  The rehearsing doesn't make that person suffer.  The reliving doesn't remind him of his wrong and cause him to ask forgiveness.  None of these things happen for one reason:  unforgiveness affects only me.  And, as I read the Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, it will affect my relationship with God.

God forgives me whenever I ask, no matter what my sin looks like.  No matter how harshly I have judged, how badly I have hurt, how thoroughly I have wronged someone, He forgives me ... just for the asking from a contrite heart.  My heart.  No one may ask forgiveness for me.

This same God paved the way for me to have this privilege to come to him and ask forgiveness by sacrificing his Son to an unearned death.  Offering him up to torture, to ridicule and to a blameless conviction ... and through a horrible, painful death on a cross for all to see, he gave to us -- and so much of the time we don't get it.  We have this free gift, and we squander it, wanting it only for ourselves.  Little do we realize, we miss a very important command:  to forgive others as God forgives us.

And if I can't understand that and act according to my selfish  desires because I "deserve better", do I really deserve the forgiveness I ask of God?


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