Wasting Time to Find It

I've been doing a lot of things I don't need to do - i.e. writing this right now - to avoid doing the things I want to do - i.e. writing other things. Or doing laundry to avoid doing dishes (though that's understandable this morning as I did 4 hours worth of dishes at work last night).

Why do we do that?

Why do I do that?

I think about what I want to write: I want to continue writing a story. The story is getting harder and harder to come back to because it gets worse and worse for it's characters. And worse still, I have no idea what will happen to them. Well, you say, how do you not know if you're writing their story? Well, easy. I'm not writing their story, they're simply taking me along for theirs.
But these are made up characters, aren't they?

Aren't they?

Maybe. Maybe not. Either way, I waste time to find it. I think about that plot line, or that unfinished bridge to a song, or that chord structure that's just missing something and instead of writing it out, playing with it, or just having the confidence and conviction to maybe just let it be what it is I instead feel inadequate to be able to do these things well. So I do something else; something less dangerous than plummeting into self examination to make something beautiful and honest.

But isn't that what that last paragraph was? Not even close. I want to write (and live) with a vulnerability that makes both you and me uncomfortable, because I know what that's worth. Like Paul talks about in 2 Corinthians 3 we contemplate the Lord's glory with unveiled faces, making us bold and making us free. What wonder is that! Does that mean that everything is put on the table to talk about? Does it mean I sit in my sin for a while? Does it mean I confess to you my every stumbling block?

Yes and no.

It means you have the power in my life to call me out in my sin and I have the power to sit in it and be humbled by God's good grace that I should have friends good enough to let me see those blocks of mine and point me back to the One who will crush all of them. To point to the Truth that we serve a God who suffered a terrible death.  A death that was so agonizingly painful that a word had to be made up for it's pain: excruciating. One so unbearable that His own mother didn't recognize him when they were done with Him. Yet, we find in Genesis 3 that that death was just a scratch on the heel compared to what Jesus did to the Accuser in that moment. Why? Because Jesus brought Life out of death. Jesus brought Truth out of the accusations. Jesus brought Light out of the shadows.

Jesus brought me out from my sin.

And sometimes, I'm scared He'll stop doing that. Sometimes I don't want to be open about my sin or think about it because I sometimes simply don't trust God enough to bring me out of my sadness over it. I'm scared He'll leave me depressed over my iniquity.

But then I come back to remember what it's worth. To remember those moments where I was confronted with my sin and it was good. I saw love in those moments, even if I felt like I needed to run out of the room. But isn't that the most terrifying thing to see? Scarier than feeling sad, scarier than feeling guilt, scarier than feeling judged, scarier than feeling alone...is feeling genuinely loved. You can run from everything else, but love? Good luck.


I guess I should wrap this up and stop distracting myself from confronting fictional (and non-fictional) sin. Maybe I can get those characters of mine to learn the same lesson.