Living In the Presence of God

The stuffy, warm, early morning air, very uncharacteristic for February, made the layers of blankets covering my body seem unbearably hot.  Pushing the blankets to the bottom of the bed, I tried to cool off and get a little more sleep.  The sun had just begun to peak over the horizon, when I felt my husband rustling under the covers next to me.  I must have dozed off for a few minutes, because the next thing I knew he was climbing back in bed saying, “I turned on the air conditioner for a few minutes to get the stuffiness out of the air.”  The welcomed coolness allowed me to snuggle under the covers for about thirty more minutes, when I awakened to the sounds of the shower running and the trailer song to the Dave Ramsey Show calling out its oh so familiar tune.  As I made my way to the sink to wash my face, my husband asked, “What is that horrible smell?  It reminds me of rotten eggs!”  He searched around the shower sniffing until he found the culprit: a sponge that had been left on the tile floor since the last time I attempted to clean it.  The sponge, completely covered in slime, immediately found its way to the trash can, where I escorted it out of the house.  A little embarrassed by the condition of the shower and the fact that I had not noticed, I quickly put “cleaning the shower” at the top of my to-do list for the morning. 

As I wiped the slime off the bottom of the shower door and scrubbed the mildew and soap scum off the walls of the shower, I began to contemplate the gross build up of sin that I had so easily ignored in my own life.  This week the Read Through the Bible in a Year program has led me through the passages in Leviticus that deal with the intricacies of the ceremonial sin offerings.  Reading through these passages, I have found a new appreciation for the seriousness of sin.  God made very strict rules regarding atonement for sin.  Yet, I so cavalierly deal with the sin in my own life, often explaining it away or ignoring it altogether.  I often think thoughts like, I would not have snapped if my husband had responded to me better.   I would have exhibited more patience if my children did not bicker all the time.  “I would have” and “if only” statements let the sin accumulate in my heart like the soap scum and slime on my shower walls, which hardens producing a self-righteous attitude.  If I could take time more regularly to clean the sin out of my own heart, recognizing my guilt and repenting, I will be in a much better place when I am confronted with other people’s sin.  1 John 1:8-10 hits me to the core:

I began to realize that it is so easy to fall into the trap of claiming to be without sin.  I am forgiven right?  What sin do I commit?  Yet as I search my heart, I realize that sin is lurking even on the surface of my feeble self-righteous heart.  As I attempt to live in God's presence, I am more aware that I am in need of daily confession to get rid of my self-righteous attitude, helping me to recognize my need of the Holy Spirit in my life to not only convict me of sin, but to help me grow in righteousness.  So, what can I do to remind me that I am a sinner saved by grace?  As I began to search through my memory banks, looking for a way to add confession to my daily life, I remembered an acrostic that my favorite high school Bible teacher encouraged us to pray through.  The ACTS acrostic, which stands for: A-adoration, C-confession, T-thanksgiving, and S-supplication might do.  Rethinking this model, I am struck by the fact that the majority of the time spent praying is focused on God rather than on what I want (supplication).  Adoration focuses on God’s wonderful attributes; confession focuses on God’s forgiveness; thanksgiving focuses on God’s blessings; and by the time I get to supplication my needs seem so small in comparison.  My hope is that praying through the ACTS model, I will see my need for a savior because instead of explaining my sin away, I will more easily recognize my dependency on my savior, exalting Him rather than feeling a need to exalt myself and my vain attempts at greatness.