Sin and the Power of Christ.

I have some catching up to do. I intended to blog quite regularly, but school got crazy and I went crazy. I'm on summer break now and intend to write something everyday. Some of these are old thoughts by now, but none the less pertinent to life and the walk of faith.

Back in February (yeah, wayyy behind) I had this wild understanding of sin and victory over sin. In my life, it has been fairly common for God to speak to me through dreams. This particular dream came in response to an unspoken prayer about sin. The dream went as follows:

I was in bed one morning. I had just woken up. As I rolled down the covers, I saw that my arms were covered with well over forty spider bites. My house had been infested with spiders for a while and these attacks had become more and more regular. The bites were painful and each one took a week or two to heal entirely. I was in pain, I was afraid, and I had no idea what to do about the infestation. These spiders were all over the walls, climbing in the Christmas tree in my living room and covering the end tables on the other side of the room.

In my distress, I looked up and saw a crack in my wall. To my horror it spilled forth another infestation of a type of creature I'd never seen before. Multitudes and multitudes. I was petrified at first. But somehow I was filled with peace and the understanding that these things would consume the spiders.

That's when I woke up. I immediately prayed about the dream and went back to sleep once I felt God had given me understanding. The house is my life and the infestation of spiders was the prevalence of sin in my life. The spiders attack me in my sleep, when I'm the most vulnerable, and the effects of their bites last longer than it takes for them to bite me. It disfigures me.

Likewise, we are most prone to sin in the places that we are most vulnerable. Mental states, physical places, etc. The effects of sin last longer than it takes for us to participate in the act of sinning. It disfigures us. It fills us with fear and despair when we realize that our house is more the possession of these spiders than our own.

We may try to kill each spider, each sin, each temptation individually but the infestation is too great. I couldn't even find the source of the infestation so I couldn't even block the point of entry and kill them at the source. Perhaps there were too many sources. Point is, I did not have the power within myself to kill the spiders and to destroy sin. What a lie we believe when we think defeating sin takes sheer will-power. What pride we claim when for a while this tactic seems to have proven effective.

The only way that the infestation can be fought is with a greater infestation of the goodness of God. Each spider, each sin, each temptation must be dealt with individually with a power that is greater than our own and which consumes sin completely. It is not in our power, but in Jesus' power. Our responsibility, friends, is not to be afraid of the second infestation and the battles going on around us.

Our job is not to kill the goodness of God which multiplies naturally in those who open their homes, their lives (and ALL facets of their lives) to Him. When we actively pursue God, we let the battle take its course because "in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us" (Romans 8:37).

God, help us to pursue you entirely, that our houses and our lives would be open to the infestation of your love and that our very beings may be healed and lives be transformed. Amen.

**Special note: Awesomely, I was reading C.S. Lewis's Mere Christianity and about a week later I read a chapter called "The Good Infection" that was basically exactly this idea. It was not the same In-word (infestation/infection), but I was blown away. God is cool like that.