Browsing Tag

Sin

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

“Scents You Left Me, Baby…”

Posted on May 22, 2023

I love to read my friends’ posts about the amazing rare chickens and goats on their homesteads. I can post about interesting animals at Serenity, too, as you’ve seen before…and interesting ‘homesteads.”

It was supposed to be a vacation week for Glenn and me, but needs on both sides of this generation sandwich were pressing. Doctor appointments, and school field days and the nursing home and a family funeral…lots of non-emergent, but still urgent things just kept us from any semblance of leisure. Blessings everywhere. Leisure: not happening. 

Then today, we were finally forced to pay attention to that wretched smell in the dining room and library; actually now the smell was spreading into the kitchen and…well, everywhere in the house. No longer could it be ignored. At first, we thought we had failed to empty the diaper pail. But it smelled more like a skunk. We considered that perhaps a skunk had crawled under our house and sprayed in the crawl space.  We wondered if one of our frequent attic squirrels had died somewhere. Finally, Glenn declared  “I’m going to call Phillips…” (that’s our HVAC repair company)….”Something has died inside our duct work. We cannot go on breathing this stench.”  and so, he did. 

The HVAC guys came out. They saw where the point of entry for the culprit was in that duct work . They gathered the tools and two men to evict whatever carcass was in there. They shined the light in the darkness of that air passage. And then they went out to my husband , who was on the mower. “That’s no dead animal in that air duct” the man said. 

“Well, what is it then?”

“It’s a whole family of skunks.” 

“Dead skunks?…in the ductwork? And in the  plural?”

“No…living ones. A mama skunk and her babies.” 

“There are living skunks in my ductwork?!” 

After a few rounds of  “We’ve never, in all our years of HVAC repair, seen any live animals in the duct work. much less a whole family; and certainly not skunks!” they began to try to decide how to evict the heavily-armed mama from her heated and air-conditioned country ground-level condo. 

It was decided that they’d saw off a length of the duct pipe and quickly squeeze the ends of the aluminum and insulation tubing, keeping the animals inside. Then they would take the varmints into the woods behind our house and set them free. It was a sight to watch those guys carefully carrying six feet of duct work across our yard and then releasing a whole skunk menagerie onto the grass in the edge of that wooded lot.  You can watch that here if you really want to:

That mama skunk wasted no time getting just beyond the brush and behind some trees to peer back and keep a watch on those  baby skunks. Six of them. Six tiny little skunks huddled together on the grass. Each one of those six baby skunks is probably going to cost us about  five or six hundred dollars. All the ductwork beneath our house has got to be replaced. 

The most interesting phenomena was the human responses to the situation. Perspective is what makes the philosophical world go ‘round. Here are a few from that stinkin’ moment when seven skunks were residing in the airways at Serenity: 

Glenn: “We’ve got to get rid of them, without the spray on us all. We can shoot them.” 

Big, brawny HVAC man #1: “ Well, there’s babies. We need to find a way to let them go.”

Big, brawny HVAC boss-man: “I really would like to take one of these babies home with me. You can have them de-scented,” 

Rebekah: “They are SOOOOO cute!”

Colleyanna (in a concerned “I-know-my-Papa” voice: “Mammy, what are you goin’ to DO wif doze baby skunks?”

Me: “I’m going outside and take a few pictures.”

Hannah: “Seriously?!!…Baby skunks in the ductwork. That’s amazing!”

Molly: “Mrs Cindy, DO it! Keep one. They are like a cross between a cat and a dog.”

Ezra: “Let me see the video, Mammy!”

Eliza Jane (in a deep motherly tone_: “AAAAAAwwwwWWWWW,”

Glenn again: “Has everyone forgotten that these are SKUNKS?! They are SKUNKS!” 

Glenn and I are in a different city tonight and we think we can still smell them. They wreaked havoc. They will end up costing several thousand dollars. They will grow up into little beasts from which we will run for our lives. They will be a tribe of big skunks in the back woods next year. They will form a union, claim they are being abused, and declare their rights to return to their native habitat. They are the stuff of which bad jokes, puns and fables are made. But those little skunk babies were ridiculously cute. So are the grandchildren who were begging for their lives. These grandkids don’t get everything they want, of course. But, let’s just say, when a skunk runs across the driveway next spring and Colleyanna is afraid to get out of the car (like this spring) I will remind her of how cute they were lying out there in the grass. 

It’s a vacation I will never forget. It surely had all the e-scent-ial elements: family, adventure, memories, and accommodating airlines. 

(Also, it IS important to look at the stinkin’ things in life and properly identify them as such. Coddling the wicked comes with a big price.)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Can you tell?

Posted on April 27, 2023

It’s busy at the Colley’s this week, but our agendas are not so pressing and our schedules are not bustin’ out like the devil’s. He is the busiest lion-wolf-snake-bee I have ever encountered. While he has always had the same agenda, I believe his forces are larger and more daunting than they have been in my lifetime. He cannot be in all places at one time (because he walks to and fro in the earth, Job 1:7), but he sure does a good job of stationing his minions in large numbers in key places in our lives. And he puts them on steroids in the lives of our kids.

While we often focus on the big picture, the devil is in the details. He starts in small things–little compromises–and worms his way into our hearts. If he can just plant a seed-thought in our heads, get our eyes to glance at  one desirable image or have a yearning for one beautiful body, or keep us from one day of Bible study, or from one night of Family Bible time, or if he can get up in our busy-ness with innocent but distracting pleasures, or if he can just get us to waste a few minutes scrolling though the slime–then he can work his way from there into our very purposes in life. He can make us think about an image over and over, rekindle a feeling of lust or a desire to participate, and he can do it over and over throughout our days until he has us walking toward the sin, clicking on the image or tasting the sweet wine of sin. Just a taste and he can make us feel defeated and he can make us view our attempts to live righteously as failures. Sometimes we then feel like, “What’s the use? I have messed up. I may as well go ahead and fill the empty space with sin and then I’ll do better later.”

Later. That’s the damning concept. Time is not the sinner’s friend. It marches on relentlessly toward the point of no return. It envelopes and enslaves while promising a day when there will be time for repentance and God. The devil can make you loathe imprisonment, but love the first step into the prison’s chamber. He can deafen you to the locking bars behind you. He can make you think the stocks of sin are unbearable, but make you love that first moment when you lie down for the bondage. He can make you hate addiction, but love the first taste of the wine. He can make you despise the distant repetition of sin, but love the right-now, one-time deception of which he is the master. He can make you hate the wolf, but fail to recognize the wool over your eyes is just a lamb’s costume–that the wolf is right inside that well designed “get-up” , ready to pounce.   He makes you think you can walk away from the danger, while he is that lion already chewing off your legs. You will not run.

If you are waiting till later to defeat him, you are planning for eternal failure. He’s not as powerful as your God (1 John 4:4), but if you align yourself with him, He wins–every time.

Later. While you wait for later, he takes your prime–the years of your health and wealth and your heartiest influence.  There may be a day when you can have God’s wonderful mercy at the last minute before you cross the Jordan, but you will not easily reclaim the innocent souls you influenced for hell during the time you leased-out to the devil, You will not reclaim the hours of praise and worship that should have blessed and nurtured. You will not retract the damnation you shared during the years you walked with the deceiver. If you had a thousand hearts to give as you cross over, they could not undo the damage of a heart given-over to Satan during the formative years of your children. He is so busy. He offers shining, but damning, moments in life–times when you make vows, sign on dotted lines, enter into covenants or move to new arenas–he offers these glamorous moments from which it becomes ridiculously hard to ever spiritually recover. He gets you in a marriage, a job, a Sodom or a financial obligation. He gets you. He is busy and he rejoices in this iniquity, especially if he can make your desperation  feel like a celebration.

And did I mention he wants your kids? He wants to get their innocence. He wants their hearts before they are even perceptive enough to see danger. He wants to lock them in to his system before they get their bearings… before their spiritual eyes are focused. He is unrelenting in his quest for the most vulnerable. He wants them to buy into tolerance before they even understand the concept of sexuality. He wants them to form addictions to devices and entertainment and media before they have an inkling about the power of the visual temptations in those little devices. The lion wants children. Children are the ground level for evil’s empire and the devil wants “in on the ground level.”

I hate the devil. He wants me and from the moment I start to think I am not subject to his lure, He starts to get his serpent fangs in me. I am personally vulnerable to the tempter’s power and I cannot let that personal vulnerability be forgotten for one moment, even as I strive to get others to see him for what he is. He loves to get the people who are bad-mouthing him.  I have to strive and recommit and constantly examine my own armor and defense.

He can do big things. He put the stone on the tomb. But that big rock was no match for God in that garden. God never took his eyes off the body of His darling Son. He has his eye on the body of the Son today and that’s where I plan to stay. His outstretched hand is there to rescue me from the great power of the Father of lies. I’m going to hold  that hand till he sends His angels to collect my soul and transport me safely to that other garden.

I really hate the devil. Can you tell?

 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Celebration

Posted on February 24, 2023

I have no words. Of all the things Cheez-It could have chosen to picture in celebration of an anniversary, this celebrated drag queen is what my Cheez-it loving and innocent grandchildren will have to see if they see the “celebration” boxes. The celebration is all about the thirtieth year of reality TV–an entertainment venue that, for Christians is not celebration-worthy, in the first place.

The word “celebration” is often associated with the most base aspects of our national thinking. The celebration aspect of sin more often envelopes the people of God than the actual participation aspect. We are not drag queens, but we look the other way when members of our congregations become involved in homosexuality and/or transgenderism. We fail to really help the teens who come to us acknowledging temptation and/or asking questions about bi-sexuality or homosexuality. We attend gay weddings or excuse the support of family members who continue to post their support of sexual sin (whether in general fornication or marriages that are adulterous)  on social media. It’s not that our congregations are filled with malicious people or deceivers. It’s more often that the one who is malicious or deceptive is not approached with meekness in search of restoration. It’s that we never progress to the point of purifying the body from sin.  In short, it’s not always verses 20-31 that we violate. We usually violate verse 32 first: 

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

I’m just saying we should know His judgment and restrain from nodding acceptance to those who are the actual participants in malignity, homosexuality, backbiting, deceiving, etc….In the Lord’s church, if we fail in our practice of seeking restoration and guiding through discipline that culminates in withdrawal of fellowship when all avenues to urge and facilitate repentance have been taken, we are nodding the acceptance. We become, by default, a part of the celebration. It’s easy to become very relaxed about sin when society around us is pushing and celebrating the very things from which we have been washed (1 Corinthians 6:9-11). 

In 1 Corinthians 5, in  the very context of a discussion (command) about withdrawal of fellowship, we see a metaphor about the old covenant’s Passover feast…the celebration. The text is rich in its comparison. If we want to celebrate, as God’s people the passing over of our sins—our gift of life and salvation through His blood—we must cast out the leaven of sin. It’s not just about personal avoidance of sin. It’s about keeping the body free from the  world’s celebration of it. That’s a huge challenge in 2023. It’s an especially huge burden for shepherds.

Your boasting is not good. Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump? Cleanse out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened. For Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed. Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with the old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth. 

Let’s celebrate this way!

(And also, though those extra toasty ones are in the amazing category of snackables,  I can’t bring myself to buy Cheez-Its right now. I just can’t.)

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

You can have both: Holiness and Grace

Posted on January 26, 2023

I know that the devil has always been alert and prowling and sly and…well, just very busy, since that day at the tree. I know he is unrelenting and unfeeling and would rather throw a nuclear bomb than a grenade. He is smart and powerful. I also know, though, that “greater is he that is in you than he that is in the world” (1Jn 4:4). I know. 

But knowing and persevering when it seems to me he is busier than he has ever been, are two different things. I have to step back and realize that I am just a tiny speck on the globe and that, at that, my life span on this earth is a tiny “tittle” on a page in the massive volume of history since that day in the garden. 

But, oh my! From my very limited and tiny perspective, it just seems like the 2020s are the years of major attacks by the great deceiver on the people of God! Again, realizing our sphere is small, I try not to become too discouraged. But then I hear others, from distant places, saying things like “I believe the devil is hard at work in our congregation,” or “This time is a very dark time among our brethren here.” 

At the risk of being a pessimist, let me say this: While my conversations in recent days with other Christians have included some things that are bleak and hard to discuss, they have also included evangelism at work, the beginnings of a Digging Deep study within a denomination, the excitement of upcoming assemblies that will include thousands of worshippers, the value of Christian education, tiny children who are learning all of the books of the Bible and many passages for recitation, and during the last two weeks, the opportunity to be with happy Christians and hear many lessons in programs that were extremely, over-the-top encouraging. There are lots of busy people and congregations still peacefully and zealously taking His grace and truth to their communities. 

But the devil is not about peace, grace or truth. He is about deceit. He is a liar and he is the father of lies. I talked with a young person last night who told me that “Scientists don’t believe in God.” The devil gave her that notion. He lied. He is the one who makes faithful young people believe that all scientists reject the notion of God. He makes people in struggling, but faithful, godly homes, believe that there can be unimaginable joy in an extramarital relationship and that it can be accomplished without any harm or knowledge that interferes with life for God. He does that by telling married people that, since all people sin in some way, adultery is no worse. “It’s just my personal weakness and God’s grace will make it alright, in the end, if I keep on repenting.” Satan whispers this, while bombs are dropped in homes and children suffer in unbelievable ways. He lies. He makes Christian teens believe that any sexual behavior short of sexual completion is not sinful. He lies. He makes people think that not one of the myriad of people in our worlds would be interested in knowing the gospel. He makes us believe that temper is such an easily spouted and then retrieved (easily fixed) entity that it will not harm relationships. In short, he lies!  And then he lies some more. He still, in Romans 6 fashion, makes us believe that we are somehow being holy when we flaunt grace for purposeful, continued sin. He lies (John 8:44).

In this environment where the wolf is devouring, while dressed as a sweet little lamb, sometimes good people unknowingly give the devil a pass into their personal lives and congregations. They do this by ignoring some of the purification processes that God has mercifully given his people. Sometimes, elders fail to withdraw fellowship from those who are showing in their lives that penitence is not occurring (1 Corinthians 5). They do this while smiling and hugging and showing great benevolence to those in need. But innocent and needy people are suffering at the hands of the impenitent, too.  Sometimes, sisters may chastise other faithful sisters for getting out of adulterous marriages and trying to put holiness back in all of their closest relationships (Matthew 19:9). Sometimes, parents buy into “gentle parenting” concepts while blatant disrespect is consuming their homes. Sometimes, we fail to do the hard work and walk through difficult doors of sanctification that God has commanded or allowed. and sometimes we encourage each other to stay in a weak defensive mode rather than to grow into people who are strongly and pro-actively carrying the gospel to those around us. 

I personally know some faithful soldiers who are being pummeled by the devil. I mean, they get up each day to the reality that he is doing all he can to impede their evangelism, to bury the encouragement they have for others, and to label even their best efforts at humility before  God, submission and holiness—as “haughtiness” or, in the most popular descriptive phrase of those who are critical of healthy doctrine (1Timothy 2:1), “phariseeism.” 

 

Let’s not let him win! Let’s not let him have our attitudes, remembering that none of us is worthy in any way before the throne, without the precious blood. But let’s not let him have our purity,. either. Let’s be in the Word, realizing that it is possible to live holy lives, leaving behind immorality (1 Corinthians 6:9-11) and exalting Him with the story of the cross that saved us, at every opportunity. I do not have to choose between His grace and His holiness. I can and must have both to make it to the throne one day! 

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

Missing Your Charm?

Posted on October 3, 2022

We’ve made one more mistake in the store for Digging Deep swag. Someone just pointed out to me that the bracelet photo on the site has two charms instead of one. If you ordered your bracelet and you just got one charm (a shovel), and you’d like a charm that says either “Blessed” or “Love” or “Faith” to attach, please send me a message at byhcontest@gmail.com and I will pop this in the mail to you. I will attach the double ring, so you can put it on your bracelet easily. This was an oversight on my part. (The bracelets given away at PTP were single charm bracelets and I failed to adjust that when I got home and started mailing them.) Please forgive me and send an email if you need that second charm to complete your digging deep bracelet. Be sure to include your mailing address. Then watch your mail! I really appreciate your help with this, as it would be very difficult, at this point, to try and go back though all those orders and find which bracelets were not double-charmed. 

You diggers are the best and always, with us, you are big on that “long-suffering” fruit of the Spirit. We are big on the “peace” and “joy” ones because you are so good to us. We all are big on those because HE is so good to us. 

I’m praying for our deepest comfort from the Father of mercies as we keep studying together.

And just for a smile, from four-year-old Maggie today:

Maggie apologized for something she did, and her mama told her that she forgave her and it was over. She told her about how God removes our sins and never thinks about them anymore. Maggie said: “Well, sometimes *I* think about my past struggles.”

It’s a conundrum. We all do. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, when our souls are washed clean because of His wonderful grace and our faithful repentance as His children, we could just forget all the past struggles?  I’m thanking Him this morning that HE does!

Bless Your Heart by Cindy Colley

The Book Does End…

Posted on December 8, 2021

Someone reminded me this morning about  how people came to visit Job– to get Job to repent of sins that he did not have…sins that he had not committed. She said this: “The book does end.”  I’m not sure but what I found more comfort in that little Biblical edification than any in recent times. 

I’ve spent a lot of my adult life trying to get people to repent or repenting myself of the sins that easily beset me. I’ve discussed repentance a hundred times with people who were learning the gospel for the first time. I’ve talked about repentance with couples who were putting marriages back together. I have often struggled with personal sin and gone through the heart process of repentance. I do that personal struggle thing pretty much all the time. But I’ve never spent much time thinking about people who were being encouraged to repent of sins that had not been committed. When I think about Job, I understand that’s a real phenomenon and the book of Job draws my attention to that brand of persecution. Just a few thoughts that come to my mind:

  1. If people say, in any situation, “There’s no innocent party in this,” look at the book of Job. Although he was a man, and thus a sinner, he was completely innocent of the devil’s specific work that brought dire consequences in many innocent lives when “there was a day” (Job 1:6). Sometimes (not always), when sin’s consequences are wreaking havoc, absolutely, positively there are innocent parties.  
  2. Even though Job was innocent in the matter, there were no Job supporters, encouragers, and helpers that we read about. Sometimes, that may still be the case. But there was an Advocate still on the throne in heaven. Job was forced to look to that one Advocate “I know that you can do all things and that no purpose of yours can be thwarted” (Job 42:2). I love that he said that. I always want to say that to the one sure Advocate of the righteous.
  3. I’m quite sure that there were people all around who did not know the full story of the “why” of Job’s suffering. (Even Job himself did not know.) Job was a well-known servant of God and surely there were people who were aghast at his condition— the ashes, the potsherd, the mourning—people who just did not know the back-story of his innocence or who simply didn’t want to/need to know it or become involved. Surely that’s often the case today.  
  4. Job made mistakes as he was suffering. He misunderstood his own suffering. In 12:6-9 he thought God was just letting wickedness have its day. Surely there are still those who wonder how long God will wait before revealing and punishing evil. God had to “reel in”the heart of Job and show His sovereignty and ask Job some questions (Job 38-42). But that did not mean Job was responsible for the devastation in his world. It meant he reacted to the devastation with doubt and despair, emotions that even faithful human beings sometimes experience.  
  5. The book did have an end. There is great comfort in that, if you are being falsely accused. Although, I know I do not have the wisdom of Solomon or the discernment that it takes to always see the innocent suffering ones, I am going to try to remember Job and refuse to be the Bildad, Zophar and Eliphaz who assume the worst and assign blame to the innocent. 

Are there innocent parties in tragic sin situations? Absolutely. There is no generically innocent man or woman before God.  That’s why Calvary occurred. Praise God for Calvary. But it is also true that there are many righteous people who may find themselves in horrific situations caused by the specific sins of other people; not their own. There are absolutely innocent parties who suffer in catastrophic situations caused by sin in lives around them. But, even the sinner who has caused pain and suffering can be forgiven by the precious blood without which we all find ourselves in hopelessness. That’s the best news about the devil and sin. Christ has won the ultimate victory.