In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the point of shedding your blood.
Hebrews 12:4
Baseball used to be the great American pastime. All the kids in my neighborhood played Little League ball. Everyone lived and died with their favorite team. Baseball was what everyone wanted to talk about. What everyone wanted to read about in the newspaper. It was the first thing talked about in the sports section of the local news. There were more baseball songs, books, and movies than you could shake a stick at.
And while baseball was on top for so many years, it’s no longer the great American pastime. And if you think that football is now number one, you’d be wrong. And other latecomers like pickleball or cornhole aren’t it either.
The number one American pastime is now to play the blame game. We love to blame someone else. Anyone else. When we hold someone else responsible for anything that happens. There’s someone to blame for big things like all the wrong in the world. And there’s someone to blame for all the teeny, tiny things in our life.
When we start blaming, it makes us feel smarter. Wiser. Better than the people around us. After all, we’ve got enough insight and information to figure out what’s wrong and where we can stick the responsibility for it. Why wouldn’t that make us ride the arrogance elevator up to the top floor.
Groups are the easiest targets to blame. It’s them against us. Since every “they” is made up of lots of people, no one has to be offended. There’s not a single person at fault. It’s this group or another. It’s this side or the other.
But there’s a much more powerful way to play the blame game. And that’s to get personal. To name someone. When a target is painted on one person, then they get all the attention. Everyone gets to focus their anger and words. It’s much more powerful. It’s also so much more hurtful.
It’s so easy to talk about someone else’s problems. Their faults. Their weaknesses. Their failures. Where they didn’t do what they said they would. Where they said the wrong thing. And even though it’s so easy to point at someone else, there’s even an easier target to pound with questions, blame, and fault.
So, when the writer starts pointing at the Hebrews and their personal struggles with sin, you know exactly what’s going to happen. It’s going to hurt. And what’s our natural reaction to pain? To pull away. To turn and go in another direction. Wouldn’t you? I know that I would.
We all struggle against sin. Each and every one of us. It doesn’t just come from the front; it comes after us from all sides. Sometimes it’s a really big and powerful temptation and struggle. Something that we just can’t miss.
But most of the time our struggle with sin is found in the small things of daily life. The little temptation. The small thought that starts taking us down a path of one unimportant choice. Followed by another. And then another. We battle with our personal sins in two ways.
Battle from inside. These are the sins that almost nobody else knows about. These are our personal thoughts and feelings that sometimes come out of nowhere. But we also know that certain things will trigger these secret sins. For me, I know that there are certain things I see or hear will be like a starting gun inside my head. So, I do everything I can to stay as far away from these things as possible.
Battle from outside. From a practical standpoint, there’s no way to hide when something from the outside comes after us. We can try and fool ourselves that it doesn’t change the way we feel or act, but we’re only lying to ourselves. Now, I’m a calm kind of guy. I have a long fuse. It takes a lot to get me visibly upset. But watch out if anyone comes after my family. Especially Mary Ann. They won’t just immediately move to the top of my hate list, I’ll stay up nights plotting revenge.
Like the Hebrews, we probably haven’t struggled against sin to the point of bloodshed. But that doesn’t mean that our emotional struggles aren’t just as real. Before anyone laid a hand on Jesus, he was in such agony that he prayed three times[1] and his sweat was like great drops of blood[2].
Nowhere is there a promise that says our lives are to be one giant and long parade of great times and blessings. Where there’s always more than enough money. Where our lives are just filled with happiness and joy. Where we’ll move from one mountain top experience to another. It wasn’t that way for Jesus, and it isn’t going to be that way for us. Our personal lives are going to be just like the old hymn.
Just as I am, though tossed about, with many a conflict, many a doubt,
fightings and fears within, without, O Lamb of God, I come, I come[3].
Noodling Questions
Why do we only really know and experience life personally?
List three struggles that are very personal to you.
When pain comes, who’s our personal comfort and solution? Explain.
[1] Matthew 26:36-46
[2] Luke 22:44
[3] Just as I Am, Charlotte Elliott, 1836
Comments