photo by: laughlin

No I’m not going to confess some horrible crime that I’ve committed. But I must say that I learned something the other day from a good friend that opened my eyes. On Saturday I had breakfast with a few of my friends and one of the things that came up was the realization of our sins.

Now I grew up with an understanding that as you grew in Christ you sinned less and therefore you noticed less sin in your life (can you say run-on sentence). But my friend Paul Ford pointed out that is only half true. Yes we grow closer to Christ and become more like Him, but we only grow in the realization of how sinful we are. Everyday we grow closer to Jesus, we see how much more of sinner we are.

Paul pointed out how in the Apostle Paul’s writing’s the apostle grew in his recognition of his own sin. Early in his ministry Paul says he’s a sinner. Later he says he is the worst of the twelve, and late in his ministry he tells Timothy that he is the worst of all (or chief for you KJV people out there). This comes from the guy who wrote a huge chunk of the Bible.

I think we need to rewrite the books (I don’t know what books…just the books). The reality is that we as we grow closer to Jesus we only see how dirty we really are. But the great thing is that He is faithful to forgive us and clean us up. The answer is not to ignore our sin…but to ask daily for it to be revealed and then to rest in the grace, mercy and love our our heavenly Father.

As I finally handed the TSA agent my driver’s license and boarding pass for the second time in the last hour, I began to think to myself…God really does work in mysterious ways.

This thought…no…this realization didn’t come through the easiest of fashions.  At about 12 today, I was walking back to Diego’s and my table at the restaurant from going to the bathroom (and this had to be one of the cleanest airport restrooms that I’ve been to so far).  Diego was frantically looking through every pocket in his backpack.  Zipper after zipper was flying open as I sat down at the table.

Diego looked up at me and told me that he had to go. 

“Ok…why?”
“I left my laptop at security.  And I left my Bible in the rental car.”

I thought it was a reasonable thing to go do and he had plenty of time to go get his stuff and still make his plane.  So he threw some money on the table, finished his drink, and headed out the door.  I thought that would be the last time I would see him for the day.  But God had other plans.