WHERE MOMENTS CLASH

The stress points of choice can be such lime lights upon our real character. That doesn't mean we enjoy them though. It is so hard for face the truth about ourselves. Some spend a lifetime avoiding looking into God's mirror of truth. The gaze is just too painful.

This last week my wife and I were involved in a process of reporting this person for violations of the law. It was interesting listening to the investigator's comments about what the person had given as excuse for breaking the law.

Naturally, the person's excuse was that it was somebody else's fault. The individual couldn't deny having broken the law, but tried to justify it by claiming another person said such behavior was acceptable.

It was less than impressive lie. And I could tell the investigator was no more inclined to believe it than my wife and I. Plus it was complicated by the fact that this person had broken this same law, not once, but at least four times! How many more I have no idea, but we were aware of four separate possible incidents.

In the end though the excuses simply will not hold up against the truth that this person violated the law on several occasions. With someone more capable of self honesty such a moment of clash would bring an epiphany, but I doubt that will happen in this case.

I think there are often times when God does for our own sake bring us to such times that we might learn. They can be very painful, but in the long run very blessed too.

What a tragedy it is when a person clings to an illusion and lie while insisting it is the truth. And no matter the consequences, they are never to blame in their eyes for what happens.

What we can learn most of all is perhaps how in such situations our capacity for honesty if related to our ability to accept the idea of grace and salvation by faith. In my experience I have seen so many times when people living in denial chose to base their salvation on their on deludes sense of goodness.

That becomes so much like some type of mental chalkboard where you erase all the sins that get written by your conscience and hope nobody saw them. It is a cycle of avoidance that never truly leads to Christ.

For the person who truly basis his or her salvation on Jesus Christ, our salvation is never based on our worthiness. We know we aren't worthy and therefore there isn't any value in pretending we are other than sinners.

Time seizes the mind in gyrations of bargaining. We attempt to balance the scale of wrong by pointing out our so-called good deeds. But the very nature of sin is such that we can never do more good than bad. Hence the Lord's comment that there are none good, but God.

Some will try though. They will always race towards the shadows for the comfort of hiding from God's light. Even when by doing so it means they miss him and truth altogether.