It is worse than pain?

My finger really is getting better (the original story is here).  I think I may even get most of the feeling back.  There’s still some weird pain in there but nothing too bad.  It’s amazing how the body can heal itself.

I found it interesting dealing with two kinds of problems in one finger – first, pain (some of it was pretty painful), and then – no feeling at all.  The odd thing was that I think I would rather have the pain than the numbness.  Some of you have had far worse numbness and pain than me, but I’ve haven’t lost feeling anywhere in my body for such a length of time.  It’s very disorienting.  Something could be sawing into your finger, and you’d never know it.  When I tried playing the guitar, either the finger hurt and I didn’t feel anything – and it was hard to tell what the guitar strings were doing to my skin.  I never knew that the lack of feeling could be so troublesome!

It got me thinking about sin.  There are really two problems when it comes to sin.  First, over emphasizing it, in comparison to the forgiveness of Jesus.  There comes a time when we have to stand at the foot of the cross and realize that our sin has fallen away, and it’s time to continue our journey.  Guilt after we’ve repented and been forgiven is false guilt.  Punishing ourselves is ignoring the fact that Someone was already punished for us.

But perhaps even more frightening than false guilt is a complete lack of guilt, even before we come to the Lord.  Every one of us at times gets so callous that we don’t even recognize the horrible darkness that we’re in.  These are the blind spots – but not just annoying blind spots – deadly ones.

May God give us the grace to be tender – to see and recognize the terrible things we’ve done.  And then may He give us the grace to repent and seek forgiveness, and know that our sin is forever gone thanks to Jesus’ sacrifice.