Plucking out sin from my life

So this morning I was doing the same thing a lot of women do - tweezing out a few stray eyebrow hairs. Most women in our culture, and even some men, are familiar with this exercise because it is part of what we do to maintain our looks. While I was doing it, I observed that as I have gotten older I have had fewer and fewer stray eyebrow hairs to worry about. I thought about that, and it occurred to me that after a while, I guess you totally kill off the root of the hair and it is gone forever. And that got me to thinking about sin.

The allegory came to me right there in front of my magnifying mirror: plucking eyebrows is like getting rid of sin in my life. When I recognize there is a sin, and I really want to get it out of my life, it takes repeated work to do it. It's hard to make a change to a habit and if the habit has roots in me, then it will take a little plucking to get it all out. It grows back quickly and easily and there I am again the next morning, staring at it in a magnifying mirror. But at least I see it, and if I focus my efforts on getting rid of it, eventually I don't have to do it every day.

Of course, in this story, I don't really have tweezers to get at my sin, I've got prayer. I pray and God answers, that is how it works. Sometimes the answer I get isn't the one I expected, but I always get an answer. Many times the answer is "keep at it, I'll do my part if you do yours." As I pray for strength to remove a particular sin from my life, I am taking the most direct action I can to pluck at the roots and I know, eventually and with God's grace, it will be gone for good.

It's a Good Morning!

Every morning on the hour, our local Christian radio station plays an upbeat, impossible-to-forget song by Mandisa, who is joined by Toby Mac. The song is called "Good Morning" and if you haven't heard it, you should go to iTunes or Pandora and find it and listen to it. I guarantee it will lift your spirits.

The song is such an inspiration to me that I have it programmed as my alarm ring tone for my phone so that I am sure to hear it every single day. I find something so uplifting and energizing about the song, and such a great reminder of God's forgiving spirit, that I really want to start my day off with those sentiments.

It is one of those songs that sticks with me all day long. I don't know if Mandisa hears this a lot, but I just can't get it out of my head once I've heard it. I truly do "wake up singing" - in my head, at least.

I can carry the message of God's love around in my head all day long just because of a catchy tune. But it is the fact that I am being intentional about filling my head with that tune that makes it an effective way to smooth out the day ahead and create a bit of a glide path for me to launch my day.

So thanks, Mandisa and Toby Mac, and thanks to The Promise radio station, for bringing me such a wonderful way to start my day.