Everyday Eternal

One of my prayers is that God will give me an eternal perspective. That I will be able to see in my life things that have eternal significance. This is a short little note of a recent moment when I believe he spoke to me about some normal, mundane thing and turned that moment into an eternal focus.


I was at an outdoor party this weekend. It was at night and I had a little jacket to keep the chill away. The jacket is pink so when my friend I was talking to said... "what is that on your arm?", I could CLEARLY see the outline of something huge and black sitting on my forearm! Those of you who know me, know exactly how I reacted. I screamed, squealed, shrieked and ripped that jacket off of me so fast and then I threw it down and ran away from it! One of the guys came over to investigate the noise and subsequent laughter. He picked up the jacket, thoroughly inspected it and said...it's okay, there's nothing on there now. Didn't matter to me at all....I refused to wear it again. It sat draped over a chair until I was ready to go home.


So, in a quiet moment this morning I thought about that whole scene and laughed again at myself. But then I heard God say to me.... that's how I want you to look at sin and this world. When sin "gets on you" or the world "gets on you". I want you to rip it off so fast and throw it down and run away from it. And don't pick it back up. I want you to be more scared of sin than you are of those creepy crawly bugs. I seriously had to think about it, because He's right you know. I seriously freak out over a bug stuck on my jacket but when I have sin creep up in my life I'm so good at explaining it away, sometimes I even sit with it a while and convince myself I'm "allowed" to sin like this because of something that happened to me in my past or because someone has hurt me or pick one of the million other reasons I(we) can justify my(our) behavior. Sin is sin...whether we like it or not. And wallowing in it cheapens the cross. Cheapens the price paid for us.


How's that for an everyday eternal moment? Dude, that's awesome, in my humble opinion! I love that God answers my prayer like that. And He used something very, very relevant in my life. Something so ordinary and mundane to make such a huge point. I totally, completely, insanely HATE bugs. And He turns it around and says....HATE sin. Not only do I hate bugs...I'm scared of them. He says, be scared of sin, Dawn. WOW!


So here's to embracing the bugs and fearing sin! Ummmm,,,,,don't know if I'm quite *there* yet...the embracing bugs part. But I sure have a new perspective on fearing and running from sin.