I have been convicted of many things as of late and the need to write them out now is of importance. At the same time, I want them to escape my mind because doing so means I can ignore them and not go about making a change that I know I should be doing.
Much of my life I have dealt with anger. It's easy for me to want to blow up. I don't like to harbor feelings and thoughts within, as then I'm more tempted to allow them to explode. When hormones rage, such as during times of the month and now after this second pregnancy, I find it even more difficult to be patient and keep irritability at bay. I'm also discovering that I'm an incredibly prideful person.
Can you see why I just couldn't wait to write this post? (insert sarcasm)
In the past three and a half weeks since my second child was born, I have found myself more easily irritated at my son. More frustrated with my husband. More unwilling to be selfless. I mean, come on, I just had a baby! Can't I have some time to myself? Can't I sleep in a little longer? Can't I be unbothered by noise, people and my husbands needs? I have sought hard to be gracious to those who want to stop and have found myself enjoying the company. And then I haven't been gracious towards my family. Why is that the hardest?
The world would say I'm justified. God's word does not.
My husband and I attend a weekly Bible study and have recently been going through Jerry Bridges' book, Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate. This book has been both enjoyable and challenging. While it's easy to condemn those who do the "big" sins such as theft, adultery, homosexuality, we as Christians usually bypass the more "respectable sins" such as pride, impatience, anger, unthankfulness. And wouldn't you know, several of the things I've been lacking are what's being addressed in the book these past few weeks (pride, impatience, irritability, anger). I can't say I really want to laugh at God's humor, but instead cringe as I fall to my knees in humiliation.
My sin is dreadful and retched in the eyes of God and yet I've too long not even giving it any consideration for how damaging it is in my relationship with Him and especially my family.
I would like to share with you a little of what Mr. Bridges says.
The Pride of Moral Self-Righteousness
"The sin of moral superiority and self-righteousness is so easy to fall in to today, when society as whole is openly committed or condoning such flagrant sins as immorality, easy divorce, a homosexual lifestyle, abortion, drunkenness, drug use, avarice, and other flagrant and scandalous sins. Because we don't commit those sin, we tend to feel morally superior and look with a certain amount of disdain or contempt on those who do....But the sin we ourselves fall into is the sin of moral self-righteousness and a resultant spirit of contempt toward those who practice those sins. In fact, Jesus told the parable about the Pharisee "to some who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and treated others with contempt" (Luke 18:9)."
Guilty.
The Pride of Correct Doctrine
"If your Calvinism or Arminianism or dispensationalism, or your views concerning the end times, or your disdain for all doctrinal beliefs causes you to feel doctrinally superior to those who hold other views, then you are probably guilty of the sin of doctrinal pride. I'm not suggesting that we should not seek to know the truths of Scripture and develop doctrinal convictions about what the Scriptures teach; I am saying that we should hold our convictions in humility, realizing that many godly and theologically capable people hold other convictions."
Guilty.
The Pride of Achievement
"So whether it's our own success or that of our children, and in whatever endeavor it may be, failure to acknowledge that the success has ultimately come from God tends to promote a pride of achievement that does not honor God. And this form of pride is sin - subtle sin to be sure, but still sin."
Guilty.
Impatience and Irritability
"The actual cause of our impatience lies within our own hearts, in our own attitude of insisting that others around us conform to our expectations."
"May we be as severe with ourselves over our own subtle sins are we are with the vile sins we condemn in others."
Guilty.
All of what Mr. Bridges says hits me right between the eyes. Why must I read about impatience when I'm running on lack of sleep, vitamin D and uninterrupted limitless time with my husband?
Then, I read about Anger.
"In facing up to our anger, we need to realize that no one else causes us to be angry. Someone else's words or action may become the occasion for our anger, but the cause lies deep within us - usually our pride, or selfishness, or desire to control."
"We get angry as a response to someone else's anger.....we can choose how we will respond to the sinful actions of others toward us....."For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God." (1 Peter 2)"
"Do I believe that this difficult situation or this unjust treatment is under the sovereign control of God and that in His infinite wisdom and goodness He is using these difficult circumstances to conform me more to the likeness of Christ?"
"To dissolve our sinful emotions, we must believe that God is absolutely sovereign in all the affairs of our lives (both the "good" and the "bad") and that all the words and actions of other people that tempt us to anger are somehow included in His wise and good purposes to make us more like Jesus."
I have been faced with much of my sin lately. I'm still not quite sure how to put some of this into practice. It's not easy for me to stifle my irritation. I seem to let it build and then it comes out at something else. I don't know how to just not get irritated and let it dissipate.
I know that God is sovereign. He knows my struggles and knows His plans for why He allows things to happens. I need to constantly remember this through these tough days. I need to constantly be in His presence, for only through Him can any of my sin be conquered. He has not left me alone to die in this wilderness of self.
O come, let us sing for
joy to the LORD,
Let us shout joyfully to
the rock or our
salvation.
Let us come before His
presence with
thanksgiving,
Let us shout joyfully to
Him with psalms.
For the LORD is a great
God
And a great King above all gods,
In whose hand are the
depths of the earth,
The peaks of the
mountians are His also.
The sea is His, for it was
He who made it,
And His hands formed the
dry land.
Come, let us worship
and bow down,
Let us kneel before the
LORD our Maker.
~Psalm 95:1-6
