Pastor’s Pen March 20

Forgive me God for I have sinned: 

Last Friday I drove to Tauranga as I regularly do to take my mum her evening meals for the next two weeks. My mum has early dementia, and this is affecting her personality, but I love her dearly. However, this particular day nothing was right for her. Out of the blue I lost my rag completely, and even swore at her. Then I left and drove back to Auckland, still fuming when I arrived. Needless to say the next few days were riddled with guilt and shame. I apologised to my mum the next day, but you can’t take back words said in anger.

Here’s what I learnt from that experience.

• Living in a COVID world for over two years, and the frustrations that it brings, can cause our old sinful nature to rise up in all its technicolour when difficult things start to add up.
• But we have a loving God who forgives us of our sins 😊 When we repent and ask God to forgive us, He does.
• Rather than keep the sin to ourselves, God asks us to confess our sins to another Christian. “Confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed,” James 5:16. I confessed my sin to a fellow elder, and they prayed for me. Immediately I felt lighter. So, I encourage you to do the same. It really does help.
• Part of repentance is to go to the person we may have hurt. This takes humility. My phone apology didn’t go down that well so I’m sensing I’ll need to drive back to Tauranga again this Friday to put things right. Even though what I said was true, how I said it was vicious and uncalled for. Although there are consequences for sin, we grow and mature when we wear them on the chin.
• Sin should cause us to examine ourselves. Where did that come from? What led me to doing that? How can I prevent that from happening again? God doesn’t ask us to examine ourselves to beat ourselves up. He wants us to recognise our “Achilles heel” that Satan so regularly nudges at. What things are likely to lead you to sin, and what can you put in place to prevent you from sinning?
• When we’ve done everything we can to put a situation right then we have to let it go. Don’t go round the mountain and pick up your guilt and shame again. Instead, learn from your experience and move on.
• Lastly, get into the Word and prayer to remind you of your identity in Christ.

So as you see, none of us are perfect. We all fail, and we all need each other. Stay strong church. Together we can. Our God loves us and desires that we experience life, in all its fullness, even during this pandemic.