respectable sins

Want a good book to fill your time? Okay, I haven't read it yet (at least not all of it), but Jared says it is a good read. And I believe everything Jared says. Well, usually. ;)

Respectable Sins: Confronting the Sins We Tolerate

by Jerry Bridges

Last night, I was feeling convicted of being too grumpy lately. Stop. Let me back-track. Last week, I started a blog post. The only title that came to my mind was "grumpy." For some reason, I left that page and skimmed through the titles of previous blog posts and drafts never published, and I noticed many more similar titles to "grumpy." I scolded myself and thought, MYRA! What is going on?!? I closed out of Blogger. Nobody wants to read grump-stuff.

Fast-forward to last night and my grumpiness conviction. I picked up Respectable Sins with the intention of reading one chapter that would fix my grumpiness. I skimmed through the chapter titles in the Table of Contents: Ungodliness, Anxiety and Frustration, Discontentment, Unthankfulness, Pride, Selfishness, Lack of Self-Control, Impatience and Irritability, Anger, The Weeds of Anger, Judgmentalism, Envy/Jealousy/Related Sins, Sins of the Tongue, Worldliness. As I read through the list, I planned to weed out the ones that weren't problems.

Jared walked into the room. I'm mumbling to myself, "I'm okay with contentment....don't need to read that....I'm pretty thankful...." Jared chuckled and said something like, "You better just read them and see." I kept going down the list with an increasing realization that I didn't have just one problem.

I needed to read Selfishness. I needed to read Pride. I needed to read Judgmentalism. I needed to read them ALL! I settled for Impatience and Irritability. After I was done, I said, "OUCH." I underlined in pencil, "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."

Jared looked over and said, "I don't like it when you mark up your books."

:) Grrr. ;) I sure do love him!

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"God, be merciful to me, a sinner." Luke 18:13

"God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." 1 Peter 5:5

"Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, to which indeed you were called in one body. And be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God. And whatever you do, in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him." Colossians 3:12-17