Learning...

[Barb]

It is interesting to think about the things that people learn to live with...

Some have learned to live with handicaps.

My SIL, Linda, was born with a deformed hand, but it is not something one notices right off because she has learned to function and perform with her handicap.

Many have learned to live with sickness and disease.

Through pain and often stressful situations, people learn to endure and live with the problem.

I have heard that there are some who have learned how to live with a cheating spouse.

They rationalize it all by saying that "at the end of the day he comes home to me!!" Thus they learn, no doubt through many tears, to live with unfaithfulness.

There are those who have learned to live with grief.

The death of a child is one of the hardest things I think to deal with. Some never find solace, but many learn that though their heart may be breaking, they must go on.

Some even have learned how to live without God.

They busy themselves with the task of living and learn to exist without the One who loves them most.

And then there are those who have learned to live with sin.

These folk are not out on the street doing their thing, but in the household of faith.

It wasn't something they intended to happen...they didn't get up from the altar if salvation thinking they were going to live on both sides of the street.

Somehow...someway they became entangled again with the yoke of bondage.

How did this happen?!

How long did it take...weeks, months, years of overriding the conviction of the Spirit...telling themselves, "Just one more time...just one more look...there is no harm...just one more time!!"

But see...a person can only do that for so long until they convince themselves that it's okay...there's really nothing wrong with it..."I can do this and get by!!"

And so they learn by experience to live with sin in their life.

They may sing and render unto the Lord a tithe...they may be faithful and do and say all that is expected and right, yet with hidden sin.

The tragedy is that it isn't hidden from the One who can make it right. He sees and knows and desires to deliver. He is ready and able. He is standing with arms outstretched and is waiting...waiting...waiting...

But it is all up to the individual in whom the sin abides to respond.