Okay, I’ve been holding this post in my head for weeks. It’s late on a Monday night, though, so I’m hoping it will make some sense. I want to end my Loving Others series with a post about “washing feet.” Washing feet is an act and concept that is not usually novel to disciples of Christ, but like most acts of humility and love, it freshly delivers with it the rare jewel of passion and blessing from God Himself as a servant stoops down low to serve another.
I honestly had half of this post in my drafts folder online for several weeks. I like to post-date my drafts often, so that I can blog whenever something comes to me and my posts will flow out in some kind of regular sequence in the future. This story of this post was then halfway written, but the whole of it was finished by the pen of God some three or four weeks later. The pure irony of that makes me stand back in awe of what God wanted to teach me after the initial idea came.
I will spare all of you the details, mostly for my own dignity, but what happened several weeks ago related to this post will forever be a spiritual marker in my life. I did something that made my husband really angry with me. I had been walking in a sin for a long time actually, but what I did recently specifically gave him every right to be angry. Instead of ruining us, though, God is using this to grow us. He used some time that we spent apart from each other that day to grab hold of both of us. Later that evening, I walked through our door expecting Eric to still be angry. But he was not. He was dressed in a suit, smiling, and had painted the entire interior of our house with the fragrance of grace and love.
He humbly took me by the hand, led me into our living room, and as he washed my feet he said, “This night is about forgiveness…”
He washed my feet. His attitude of humility showed that he loved me for who I was, not what I had or had not done. I wept as he displayed Christlike love to me. What Satan wanted to use to tear us apart God used to teach both of us the magnitude of His grace. That is true love. I feel as though in many ways we were married for the first time the night that my husband washed my feet.
So I think it is appropriate to end this series with the huge lesson that God taught me about washing feet so recently and transition into a new series that I hope will continue to sharpen me and encourage you. I want to turn my focus now to the lessons God is teaching me as I look back in hindsight in my struggles with sin and the prayer that sin would not reign in me as I walk on with Christ.
The two people that are holding me by the hand with their words right now are Thomas Brooks and John Bunyan. I want to post a series of entries about “sin” and various sobering and encouraging words that these authors bring related to it. I am currently reading The Riches of Bunyan compilation and Precious Remedies Against Satan’s Devices by Brooks. Wow. I agree with one reviewer online who had this to say about Brooks’ “Remedies”:
Next to most people’s Bibles is a copy of John Bunyan’s classic THE PILGRIM’S PROGRESS. However, Brooks’ amazingly convicting PRECIOUS REMEDIES should be on the other side. This is possibly the most valuable of all the puritan writings, and a must read for every Christian, especially those struggling and/or tampering with sin. Satan hates this work as it exposes his devices….and offers biblical methods to avoid and overcome them. Seek this one out at all costs…
Thus I end this with the beginning of something new. I am humiliated to share that I have struggled, failed, struggled, wrestled, etc. with sin when my desire is to always write here about my joy in following Christ and how He is first in my life. But the reality is all of us struggle with sin, and I want to throw some pearls out that God is giving me right now as I truly learn that this life with Christ is a serious, daily battle. So I look forward to what God will lead me to write as I study. I want to encourage you as well. Are you in a battle right now with sin? I want to offer these words of gold to you as you offer up your weak shield of faith.
There are two ways I want to post these thoughts. First is a series on sin, and the second way is a category of upcoming posts that I want to call “Bits of Bunyan” in which I will simply quote the profound little nuggets that I am reading from him. I hope you are blessed. I know I will be.
(photo courtesy Peter Skim)
