So far the flour has remained in the pan and not sprinkled throughout the Sampson household, but it has already shown me some poignant things about my treatment of sin. The point of the "Lent table" isn't to put emphasis on what we do or don't do for Christ but rather all that He has done for us in the shedding of His pure, precious blood over the depravity of who we are. Several things have been revealed in even the few short days that we have had a tangible way of portraying our outcry for forgiveness and the beauty of the complete removal of sin under the blood of Jesus. One instance is when sin occurs and we have a brief moment of acknowledgement, but then the actions of the moment drown out the true seriousness of our wrongdoing. Often these sins are those we callously refer to as the "little sins" that stay hidden within the recesses of our minds. Annabeth demonstrated this when she said, "Oh man, I was pretty mad when you asked me to the do the dishes last night, but I did them anyway and forgot to ask for forgiveness of my attitude." Oh how true this is! In my own life I am often aware of these sins of my mind, the selfish attitudes and rebellious thoughts, but since they seem so "insignificant," I callously dismiss the seriousness of the wrong. There are no outer consequences and so I believe the lie that there is nothing "worth" confessing. How the enemy will put me in bondage to the sins of the mind! Another instance was when Emma said, "Yeah, that probably was a sin yesterday but I didn't think it was important enough to actually go to all the trouble of confessing it at the Lent table." This is also so penetrating into the treatment of sin in my own life. How many times do I shrug off sin because it isn't really "convenient" for me to take the time to confess? How callously I treat what grieves the Holy Spirit and is an affront to the holiness of my Creator! May I be broken daily, reminded by Him that nothing in me deserves the blessing of his abundant grace and mercy. Lastly, Jack was in the midst of tattling on his sister at the dinner table but when met with the "great judgement face" of his daddy (you know the one with the one eye raised with tilt of the head?) he quickly left his plate of food and said, "Um, I kind of need to go do something. I'll be back in a minute." Of course, I whispered for Jay to go follow him and Jay watched as Jack wrote a symbol of tattling in the flour and then bowed his head in prayer. He asked Jay to help him read a passage of scripture and then drew a cross over his symbol of sin and erased the images all together. A quick, humble action of repentance. No arguing, analyzing, justifying or categorizing-just simple obedience of confession. May I remember daily to call upon the mercy and grace of my Heavenly Father to quickly confess all the sins of my day in order to humbly rest in His complete forgiveness.
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