Something to declare

Rhona Cathcart March 11, 2018 0 1

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Ephesians 2: 8-10

8 For by grace you have been saved through faith, and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God— 9 not the result of works, so that no one may boast. 10 For we are what he has made us, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand to be our way of life.

I have always said that I’d make a lousy smuggler. I instinctively feel guilty when a customs officer looks at me, even if I have absolutely nothing to declare. It must show on my face, because I seem to get searched quite a lot. 

To the anxious mind, the notion that the spirit ‘convicts’ us of sin doesn’t sound reassuring - because we all know that punishment follows a judgement of guilt.

But what if our conviction was more of a diagnosis? What if what followed was not punishment, but healing? Recognition of our faults, our flaws, our distance from God, can be the first step in developing a life enhancing faith. 

There’s a burning in my heart, Lord

It’s telling me that I’m not what I should be

Not what I could be. 

It’s stirring up my dusty complacency.

It’s making me question, 

who I am, 

what I’ve done.

It’s making me wonder if I could be more, 

more than the selfish impulses I try to smuggle past others 

so that they might think well of me. 

It’s making me want to say I have something to declare 

to unpack it all in front of you, 

not in fear, but in trust 

that you will not leave me where I am.