Tackling the sin problem in my life.. oof!

So funny story.. I am often called a transparent, honest open book person. People often think I am crazy (for that and other reasons) and my close friends and family laugh at me because this transparent and honest thing is accompanied with being easily completely mortified. So when my last blog post reached over a hundred people, I kinda wanted to die. And Chris laughs and says "When are you going to learn that is how social media works. You post stuff. People read it"   I responded with that I live in this la la land that you people have better things to do than to read my FB posts and certainly my long rambling blog posts. And my only explanation of why I continue is that insomnia is 1) boring and 2) makes me a crazy oblivious to reality person

So I titled this blog post something boring and am going to continue to think that maybe no one but a handful of people will read it.. ha ha!  Because seriously.. who wants to talk about sin?  Last I checked that was a topic that was avoided in most of my social circles unless of course, you wanted to spout off your beliefs about other people's sin by re-posting an article on FB.. that's okay. But a blog post about your own sin.. yeah I am a little quirky I admit.

In my new journey to draw closer to Christ, it quickly became apparent that I have a sin problem and in my new journey, I have a desire to not sin. Soo where does this leave me? It only leaves me with one choice.. doing something about my sin.  Hmm that is way harder than it sounds.. you see..I am old and I have been doing some of these sins for a longgg time.. I have had a long time to have these sins deeply ingrained in my being. So here is what I have discovered in my time with God.. He is willing to help me with my sin problem but I don't think it's as easy as saying a prayer in the morning "Lord help me" and thinking I am good to go.  I actually tried that and it didn't work.

Here is what I do know.. or at least pretend to know.. or at least at 3 AM in the morning am typing that I know.  1) Pray continually.. not just in the morning  2) Set your minds on things above...it is harder to sin if I am reading my Bible and memorizing it  3) Tell other people about my sins.

So that leaves me with #3... now if you are NOT crazy then you do #3 with your spouse and a close group of friends. And I AM going to do that because I am going to ask my close friends and family to keep me accountable but then I decided to go the crazy route and just tell everyone.. ha ha.. told you I was crazy.

I discovered that sin problems usually have a root problem. My root problem is that I have a lack of self control.  A multitude of sins falls in this category.  And through it, I decided that I don't love people enough... More self control will lead to showing those that I love that I love them. The sins I have don't have consequences that hit hard a lot.  No, my sins consequences are much more subtle.. so subtle that they are super easy to ignore when I am not walking with the Lord. And Lord help me that I don't ever see my sins as "lesser sins"..sin is sin..period.

So here we go.. I know you are waiting with baited breath for my deep dark secrets...I am laughing right now because I again assume that none of you are still reading this.. seriously people.. go find a good book!

1.  Laziness -  I really owe an apology to my family for this one. It's true.. I am lazy. I shy away from responsibilities. I don't use my time wisely. My homeschool is a big hot mess right now. I overcommit to things that keep me from doing the things I really need to be doing. There are five million chores that need to be done. I am not a good steward of my time. Ephesians 5;15- 16 Look carefully, then how you walk,, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil.

2. Addiction  -  I have an addiction to food. I won't get into the past but this is certainly not my first time around with addiction.  You know what is not easy about addictions.. breaking them.  I am addicted to sugar. This is a BAD thing to be addicted to when you are facing a diabetes diagnosis.
And I will be honest.. I am not really open to talking about this one.. because I feel like people are always trying to sell me on something.  It's not that I don't know HOW to lose weight and eat right.. it's that I choose not to do the things that I know I am supposed to do.  1 Corinthians 6:12  "Everything is permissible for me" but not everything is beneficial  "Everything is permissible for me" but I will not be mastered by anything

3.  Gossip - ouch.. Dear friends, I don't love you enough to not talk about you.  Isn't that what we are saying when we talk about other people?  And this is the one that I will ask my close friends to keep me accountable to because well, they are sometimes helping me out with this (sorry to throw you under the bus, friends, but it's true).  I remember in my younger days thinking that gossip is defined as saying things that you would not say if they were in the room or saying things that you don't want to get back to them. And also defined as "Is what I am saying about this person going to make the other person think more highly of the person or less highly?"  And what does God think about what I am saying.. it is easy to forget that God is right there with every conversation.. forget being embarrassed because the person you are talking about walked into the room, I should be embarrassed because God is already in the room and is not very pleased with my lack of tongue control..   Ephesians 4:29  Let no corrupt speech proceed out of your mouth, but such as is good for edifying as the need may be, that it may give grace to to them that hear.

I could list many more probably but those are the ones that the Lord has laid upon my heart at this time.  And the ones that I will be asking my friends to help keep me accountable.  You will never see me pretending like I have it altogether.. I will be the first to admit that my life is crazy out of control. But I recognize that and I truly believe that the Lord is going to help me put this crazy thing called life together. I will never be perfect and thank goodness there is grace for that. But I do recognize that my life is not as honoring to Christ as it should be. One day at a time, one prayer at a time, one foot in the front of the other.. Holy Spirit helping me every step of the way..God's got this