As I See It…

I was wrestling with the sin of my soul for a couple of days this past week and blaming another for it. I was wrestling with the sin of my soul and like Jacob I came away from the presence of the Lord wounded…deeply.

It does not matter what the nature of the sin may be; suffice it to say, sin is sin. The more I wrestled, the heavier the weight. As if piling brick upon brick, stone upon stone, I was being suffocated by my own pride.

Again, like Jacob, there was little sleep while this wrestling match ensued. And sleep deprivation does little to help gain spiritual perspective. Then, like David in Psalm 73, I came into the presence of the Lord, and He gradually gave me the perspective I desperately needed.

There is a transcendent majesty about our Lord. He remains high and lifted up; His holiness remains unstained by my sin or my wrestling. He is still holy and waits for me to become the same. His patience, O how glorious is my Lord’s patience! While the stubbornness of my tainted soul initially stymied the light of His grace from reaching the darkness of my despair, at last there was the refreshing breath of His holiness shattering my pride and removing the load…brick by brick, stone by stone.

The grief of my soul causes me to realize how much I contributed to that bowed head on Calvary’s hill some 2,000 years ago. And though I was an Abraham, a Moses or a Daniel, I still could not, with them, approach the holiness of His character though cleansed by His grace.

Yet, he still bids me to be holy as He is holy. “How?” I cry out! “By my grace,” He replies. “It is after all,” He continues, “still sufficient for you.” And then, as though released from its anguish, my soul begins to respond. A refrain of one of those glorious hymns begins to waft through my tired brain and heart: My sin, O the bliss of that glorious thought, my sin, not in part but the whole…is nailed to the cross and I bear it no more. Praise the Lord, Praise the Lord, O my soul!

Finally, the one word that solidifies the refreshed state of my soul: forgiven. With new appreciation I value the teaching of David in Psalms 32 and 51. How blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered!

Pastor Megilligan