The other day I was helping a friend search for a set of lost keys when he made a quip that struck me funny enough to laugh out loud. My friend offered the comment, “I come from a long line of losers.”
I laughed because I, too, had family members who had special talents with lost things. My father had a talent for finding lost golf balls. Every time I would put a slice into the woods on the right – an every other stroke occurrence – Dad would come out of the woods with two sleeves filled with golf balls. Unfortunately, my Titleist 3 was never one of them.
My grandmother always had the same comment every time she found an item that had been lost. “It was in the last place I looked.” The smart-aleck teenage boy would always reply, “Of course it was. Once you found it, why would you keep on looking?”
As we conclude another week, our devotional thoughts have centered so far on our sins. We have looked at what sin is, and how it becomes a part of our nature. The sins of the world led Jesus to the cross so many years ago. As Paul tells the Corinthians, God made Christ “who never sinned to be the offering for our sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21 NLT).
The Search Continues
Our Psalm for the week talks about searching (Psalm 139).
We spend most of our lives searching, don’t we? More than keys or golf balls, we are looking for purpose, meaning, fulfillment, or happiness. Driven by a sense deep inside that we lack something important, we look for a Titleist 3 in a box marked Wilson or Pinnacle.
May I ask something personal? For what are you searching? Through almost seven full decades, I have searched for acceptance, for someone to love and spend my life with, a satisfying career, a positive environment to raise children, and enough money to pay the bills.
The things we search for often become the driving force in life. There’s nothing wrong with searching for a life that fulfills. God doesn’t mind the search.
Satan doesn’t mind the search, either. In fact, he wants to help us look. Another set of eyes will help find it faster. You want fulfillment? Here, try this. Try this. Know what you want? This way will get it faster. Cheaper. Less work. Easier.
Sin: The End of the Search
Sometimes the easier way involves sin. But it doesn’t feel like sin because it helped us reach a goal that was so good. I won’t call it a sin – I will call it a choice this time. And the next. Then the next.
For Jesus, it sounded like this: I can see how hungry you are. Why don’t you turn those stones into bread and end your suffering (see Matthew 4:2-4)?
The more we overlook sin – especially our own sin – the easier it becomes to do so. Our conscience becomes cloudy and confused.
One of the most important books published in my lifetime is a book by Karl Menninger entitled “Whatever Became of Sin?” The distinguished psychiatrist examines human morality and the existence and consequences of sin. The helpful volume offers practical hope for our troubled times. Unfortunately, the book is no longer in print.
Whatever happened to sin? We have covered it over and looked the other way for so long, we can’t see it any longer.
The Path of Pain
David concludes the 139th Psalm with a prayer for God to search and test him. There is just a twinge of irony in the request. He is asking God who knows everything and has the hairs on David’s head numbered, to search him with a fine-toothed comb.
God is not going to find something that He doesn’t already know. It seems that David’s point is for God not only to search but to reveal. “Tell me about my sin. It is so easy for me to overlook it.”
David asks God to point out any “anxious or offensive ways” that he might have. The Hebrew for the latter phrase literally means “path of pain.” In a nutshell those two words describe what sin does to us.
Sin makes me anxious. I am afraid I will be caught. I have probably had to lie to cover it up. Who have I lied to, and what lies have I told? Has one sin led to another?
Sin also causes pain. The anxiety and guilt of sin wear on my physical and emotional health, not to mention what it does to my spiritual well-being. My sin often causes pain for others.
The problem David has – the problem we all have – is that although he wants to stay clear of evil people and sinful ways, there are threads of sin deep inside him that cloud his vision and thwart his desire for godly living.
The path of pain leads us to the need for the cross of Christ.