I love lists....

I love lists! My pastor encouraged the people of my church to read the Bible in a year. I always start out well....then and finish sometime later...sometimes way later....ugh! I love reading the Bible and I am sure that I've read it through many times over the past 20 years, but I just didn't know for sure, so I took the challenge.

Now you have to know one more thing about me. I procrastinate. It is one of my many weaknesses. So one thing that I do to help me overcome this weakness is that I set my goal earlier than the assigned date. Good news! It has totally worked this time. I am right on schedule with my December reading. I only got bogged down in September and October (school had started, my older two kids left for Michigan....etc) but I was able to get back on track in November and now I am almost done.

I feel so good about completing (well, almost, but very soon!) this task.

I have many lists in my life, but there is one list that God is working on my to get rid of....it is the list of wrongs that a person has done against me. The Bible says that if I truly love I will not keep a record of wrongs. Wow.

I find myself doing that over and over again. I think that I have forgiven someone and then they do something that I feel hurt or threatened or angered by and my mind plays all the other "injustices" against me. The Bible says that if I truly love this will stop. It has to stop.

How does it stop though? My dear pastor said it eloquently today. He said, "faith comes from hearing and hearing by the Word of God." He said that for there to be any change I've got to get into God's word daily.

John the apostle wrote, "If we confess our sins, he (God) is faithful and just and will forgive our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness." (I John 1:9)

Last night I confessed by sin of keeping a record of wrongs against one of my family members to God, then I confessed it to my family member. This is one list that I don't want to keep anymore with anyone.

Today I had an opportunity to use this record of wrongs again...but instead I chose to follow God's words of love and not do it. Instead I thought of an alternative idea to their request and it was beneficial to me, to my family member and to another friend.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal....love thinks no evil." (I Corinthians 13:1, 5b)