I have a friend who sends me socks in the mail every year for my birthday. I love getting socks in the mail from this friend for many reasons. Every man needs dress socks, but I don’t know any who particularly enjoy purchasing them. Second, I get fancy socks with argyle patterns on them and that aren’t the kind with the gold thread in the toes that I would always pick out. And finally, every time I wear those socks I remember that my friend got them for me and I feel special for about the first ten seconds of that day.
The trouble is, I soon forget that my socks make me feel special once I spill my first sip of coffee on the dress shirt that I bought for myself. And you might not believe it, but a year is a long time to go between getting new pairs of schmancy argyle socks. The socks get holey. And recently I have begun noticing that I am in more and more situations wear the holey socks just look downright tacky, despite all the argyle decor they boast.
Yet, I can’t bring myself to throw out the socks. Instead, I keep them in the drawer until I eventually forget they have holes in them and wear them until I go to dinner at a fancy house where my toes are again denuded. So I resolve that I will throw the birthday socks out the moment I get home. But, I don’t. Instead, I tell myself I will wash them once more, then cut them up and use them as fancy rags for when I do fancy cleaning things like dusting. Despite the obvious problem that I have never felt the spontaneous impulse to dust, I am also confronted with the reality that it is hard to tell (or remember) that socks have holes in them until you are wearing them in above classy dinner situation.
I feel like sometimes, when I ask God to forgive me for something stupid I’ve done that I don’t want to do anymore its just like what I do with my argyle socks. That is, I don’t throw the deed away. Instead, I try to wash it and convert it into some other semi-functional deed that may be of some service. So, after I lose my temper because some jerk with sunglasses got in my lane and then slowed down in front of me so I have to disrupt my oh-so-finely-calibrated cruise control, I ask for forgiveness for the incident (maybe, days later, if I remember for some reason) and go back to driving the same way.
I expect, that since I asked for forgiveness, the next time I place myself in the same situation with the same jerk drivers with sunglasses that my reaction will be different. And it isn’t. I just keep finding that I am still wearing the argyle socks with holes in them on my feet.
I’ve recently realized that there is a difference between what I see as forgiveness and what God wants in repentance. I don’t know exactly how the machine works on God’s end, but I know on mine, that God wants repentance, and when I ask for forgiveness and stop there, I never quite get to repentance.
In order to stop finding myself in embarrassing situations showing of my big toes and their finely maintained toe nails, I had to throw out the argyle socks. If I tried to wash them, I’d end up wearing holey socks again and I did not want to do that. In fact, I wanted to not wear holey socks on my feet more than I wanted to somehow save the special socks. That’s the only way that I can stop wearing holey socks.
I think repentance works in the same way. I can ask God to forgive me for getting angry on the road a million times, but if I head out onto the road as the same person I was the last time I blew my top at a driver who inconvenienced me, chances are I’ll find another annoying driver and lose my temper again. What has to happen, is that I want to not get angry with my brother so badly that I determine that I will stay in the right hand lane of the highway, expect to be behind a slow semi-truck, and enjoy the radio for a change.
Just like I throw out the holey socks the instant I realize they are holey (or the instant I get home from the fancy), I have to throw out the behavior that leads to me becoming angry with my brother. Namely, I have to stop trying to make the best time possible on the freeway, because that behavior, not the idiot drivers I encounter, is what leads to my anger. And until I want to stop being angry so badly that I don’t care if it means that I have to stay in right lane behind whoever may happen to be there, I will never truly repent.
The truth is, another set of pristine socks with even classier argyle patterns will come soon enough, and until then, I can deal with the golden toe variety I pick out for myself to get my by. And the music on the radio is strangely much more enjoyable from the view of the back end of a semi truck than the view of the back of my hand as I try to restrain a pesky finger from popping up in the middle of my hand.
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