Today was campus cleanup day. Faculty and students spent the afternoon raking, sweeping, spreading mulch and carrying away the last fall’s leaves. We do it every year just prior to alumni weekend. We want the campus to look good for the homecomers. Our problem today was the wind. There were moments when the wind redecorated the dormant flower beds just as fast as we could rake them clean.
As I stood with leaves swirling about my feet I remembered other occasions in my life when I couldn’t seem to ask forgiveness for my sins fast enough because they continued to accumulate about me. As fast as Jesus carried them away I replaced them with a new batch. I found myself envying a colleague who told me he sometimes had trouble confessing his sins because he couldn’t remember any that he hadn’t cared for days before. Then I remembered a verse that killed the envy. It’s I John 1:8. “If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.”
I don’t think my friend thought he was lying. I just think he was ignorant of the magnitude of selfishness that resides in us. I think sometimes we are so full of sin and so used to it we no longer recognize its presence. I heard a preacher say if God revealed to us the full magnitude of our desperate situation we would just give up in despair. God only shows us the truth about ourselves as we are able bear it.
The truth is very simple. We are sinners and we have a Savior. His name is Jesus. He and He alone is the only way any of us are going to make it.
Written by Roger Bothwell on April 9, 2009
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
rogerbothwell.org