Set Your Sights On Things Above
We so quickly get our eyes off God. Let's get back into
perspective.
perspective.
11/30/2017
The Good List and the Bad ListI recently got a review on one of my books in which the reviewer was livid that one of my characters had said something wrong. It wasn’t cussing, it was an insult. She was under intense pressure, suffering from suppressed grief, had been thrown into a situation she didn’t want to be in, had her entire life upended and moved across the country - so yes, she spouted off and said something both ungrateful and ungracious, and downright mean. She acted badly.
Later, not too far later, just a day or so later, she repented completely and apologized, then never repeated those actions again. But this reader was so intensely angry that she didn’t bother continuing to read to find out whether the main character turned herself around and got right. So she was angry with me, the writer. This got me thinking. We often think of people as being on one of two lists, and never those twain shall meet. Either you’re a good person who says good things and does good things, or you’re a bad person who does bad things. This means we automatically place ourselves on the “good” list, and then don’t want to believe that we could possibly do what those on the “bad” list do. We don’t want to admit our own darkness, and so we deny that it could ever happen to us because we’re “good.” People, this is the wrong way to think … those on the good list do and say wrong things too. This means that yes, even you are capable of being ungrateful, rude, uncaring, thoughtless, or harsh. This means that you can fail, you can behave in a way that hurts someone else. An unwillingness to acknowledge that means you won’t ever be willing to face facts when confronted with your own sinful behavior. You cannot repent of something you’re unwilling to admit you ever did in the first place. In reality, there are two lists of which every human on earth is a part - “saved” and “unsaved.” And in reality, you only switch from one list to another in one way - that’s through faith in Jesus Christ. Salvation is the only way you go from the “unsaved” list to the “saved” list. People on either list can do good things or bad things. Both lists have people who are sometimes mean, both have people who are sometimes harsh or thoughtless, because both lists are made up of humans. Saved or unsaved - those are the two lists that matter. |
AuthorI'm Sherry Chamblee, aspiring author of Christian fiction, mom of six, wife to a cool dude, and caregiver to his granny. Besides that, I am just little old me - it's just a phrase, I'm not really old, honest. Check out my new release!
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December 2019
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