My heart is heavy this night. This year has been difficult. I feel pain. It is sinking in me. Heavily and deeply like stepping in deep mud. It is slow. immovable. irreversible. I am not talking about violent afflictions caused by personal grief. I am talking about the overwhelming weight of sin.
I see sin as the violation of our relationship with God. I understand its destructive consequences. But I have now started to grasp how painful it is. It causes so much suffering.
Racism and condescending are so difficult to bear. I can barely watch those images of people shouting their hatred to Elizabeth Eckford, a young black lady, going to “their” school (Central High School, Little Rock, Ark 1957). A crowd yells and protest. “Go back to your own school” I hear… or “God forgives murderer and he forgives adultery. But He is very angry and He actually curses all who integrate.” Personal feelings of rejection and worthlessness resurface. I wonder what lead so many to be blind and to pour out their outrage on someone whose skin color is different… if not sin.
Diseases and handicaps cripple our lives. The brokenness of creation is inevitable. There is of course this pandemic that has taken lives. There are also “normal” diseases that have plagued our families, parents, siblings, friends. We do not like to see that reality. Why? Because it breaks our perception of who we are. We want to see ourselves as young, healthy and happy forever. But cancer, sclerosis, Alzheimer’s disease, etc. bring so much pain and frustration. Our parents are not what they used to be. Our children suffer what they should have not. Sin has broken us.
Our defective parenting has been destructive to our children… just as we have been malfunctioning due to our parents’ failure to parent us perfectly. We just have to read counseling books to realize how much we suffer the consequences of our parents’ action. When we become parents, we want our kids to experience better parenting than we had. Yet, each generation thinks the same. Even the best parents cannot love and do what it should have been. I can see that in the eyes of my own son. As much as I love him and would give him the whole world, I see how much I fail him as a father… and how I am not able to be the father he was meant to have. Our sinfulness has been passing on from generation to generation…
And there are so many other evils that are not named here.
The weight of sin is heavy. I sometimes find myself letting pain sink as I pray in silence. I do not dwell in bitterness, but I remember how hurtful sin has been. I somehow acknowledge that I have been broken, and there is nothing that can fix it. That is why I see how the creation is groaning for God’s redemption.
This is the first time I have yearned for the return of Jesus. Though we ought not to be cynical and hopeless, we will not be able to fix this world perfectly. There are so many injustices that will not be dealt with, so much pain that cannot be removed, so much brokenness that cannot be mended. Unless Jesus comes, we will never experience the fullness of what we were meant to be and of what He died for. He will end sin and its pain.
Heaven in Mind 