No, the three words are not I Love You. That was what you thought of first, right? Or maybe it was Faith, Hope, and Love? But again, that isn't what I'm writing about today. I read about three other words in my devotional this morning and I want to share them with you.
The first word is Denial. Definition: Refusing to acknowledge the reality of a situation. How many of us do that? We deny that our children are all over the place. We deny that we are doing anything wrong. We deny that our behavior causes chaos. We deny that we need anyone; we can do it on our own.
The second word is Projection. Definition: Acknowledging the reality of the situation but denying any responsibility. Example: You are sitting at your computer and your friend comes over and sits his (or her) drink on the desk and starts talking to you. In animated conversation, using hands that fly every which direction (yes, I talk with my hands), the drink is knocked over and it spills all over the computer keyboard. You look at it in horror; your friend just runs to get something to wipe it off with. In the meantime, this scene is being played in your mind in slow motion as you think of what you need to do - back up the hard drive; get the drink out of the keyboard (too late, of course, as the screen flickered and went black just as the drink hit it). Your friend tries to make a joke about it and then leaves. You shut the computer and try to figure out what to do.
The third word is Minimization. Minimization is acknowledging the reality of the situation and even owning responsibility for it, but denying its seriousness. Minimization is another tactic we use to avoid honesty. We tell ourselves partial and palatable truths. We downplay and tell ourselves "It's not that bad." Let's say your friend calls you a few days later to apologzie and makes this comment: "I hope your computer dried out, and it didn't end up being a big deal." Even if it was done unintentionally, the responsibility of the situation is minimized.
Isn't that sometimes what we do in life? We deny we do something wrong. Then we may acknowledge "well, yeah, that did happen.", and then we tell ourselves "I'm sure it wasn't a big deal". We see it in our lives if we want to be honest with ourselves, and we see it in others lives as well.
There is a saying - I don't know who started it, but I've heard Dr. Charles Stanley say it a few times:
"Sin will always take you farther than you want to go. Sin will always cost you more than you want to pay. Sin will alwys keep you longer than you want to stay."
Scripture doesn' minimize the consequences of sin. God takes sin very seriously. In the Old Testament, when God wanted to warn the people that destruction was coming, He would most often send a prophet. The prophet would confront the people with the truth of where things were heading. Instead of repenting, the people would frequently minimize the prophet's message, and instead of turning back to God, they would continue down the same path and reap the consequences of their sin. When they ignored God's messages through Jeremiah, for example, Israel was enslaved by the Babylonians for seventy years. But when the people were brutally honest and repented of their sin, God would respond with compassion and grace.
Joel 2:13 - "Return to the Lord your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in love, and he relents from sending calamity."
God's offer of compassion and grace is still wide open to each one of us. Remember the prodigal son? God waits with open arms for us to awaken, get honest, and take action to return to Him. Being honest with our sin means we stop minimizing and instead recognize that whatever took us away from God, is a big deal, after all.
Thankfully our heavenly Father's love and forgiveness is a much bigger deal. Stop and think about that habit, that one thing, that is keeping you from returning to God.
Blessings!
