The Daily Life

Jerry Bridges in Respectable Sins Chapter three has a helpful reorientation to the ideas of sins. This view contains looking at all sin as something to be worthy of repenting of. In this way of seeing sin we are able to then name honestly the simplicity of our sin or maybe it is better to say our common sins. Upon the daily life we must look for our salvation from the daily sins. Jesus is our salvation as we know, though we have forgotten this for the simple somehow coming to believe that Jesus is only in the grand. Our faith has become large as the big screen, our events the defining moments, our highs and lows the only reference points of life. We measure not by “day and decade”* but by achievement and destruction. Our days have gone unnoticed. Yet it is not in the harvest that the tree grows good fruit, it is in the daily, the consistent, the patterns by which the tree lives. A tree does not think to grow fruit, nor does it stress to do it, nor does it plan great things. It simply lives fully alive and fruit comes of it. The attraction to the large and eventful in life is the base which causes us much harm. We have become naive.

In the New York Times articles, it is easy to see how trendy and big deal sins are highlighted. Not a faith-based journal, the Times still highlight acts that are sinful. If not of the person they interview than of the perpetrators of them. Still sin is highlighted and the sin is normally not a Respectable Sin as Bridges describes. Here it is seen in the Jonathan Van Ness article that what draws attention is the fact that he has HIV (read current and trendy as this has gained much publicity) and also the fact that he survived sexual abuse. These two things do merit empathy and compassion. Deep tears and deep mourning are right and proper for these two things. I think they should be named and spoken. Ones story can free another to see their own for the first time.

It is not the highlighting of this story which shows the cultures fascination with big sins but its lack of fascination for the small routines which add up. This must be due at least in part to how it is much more difficult to track the weight of so-called small sins though it is easy to detect HIV in the culture today. May we learn to mourn both well

*The Become Good Soil Podcast with Morgan Snyder

Related posts:

Welcome to the ultimate guide to unlocking the power of atomic habits! Have you ever been puzzled why some people seem to achieve their goals while others struggle effortlessly? The answer lies in…