Getting Blind Sided

Fifteen or so years ago, Susan Ashton came out with an album that I love called "Distant Call."  One of the songs on it that particularly resonated with me is called "Blind Side."

Clear to the left, clear to the right
Without a sound it came around
Hit me on the blind side
Look to the front, look to the back
Down for the count I'll tell you how
It hit me on the blind side.
And though I could see
The truth staring right at me
Well I did not ready myself
For the blind side

That is sometimes how I feel about sin, especially the habitual sins that have worn a groove in our souls because they are our "go to" sins.  I have a list of those sins.  The one I am battling right now is food related--letting food be my comforter and my escape hatch.  Another one that I have been battling for a while is perfectionism, which is a very pretty word for a very ugly sin--pride.  These sins feel like security blankets--"blankies."  However, when God gives me a glimpse of them, I see them for what they really are--spiked chains dragging me away from Him, leaving wounds that only He can heal in me and in others.  Then I start taking them off, usually needing His help and definitely needing His grace, wondering how they grew back from the last time I laid them at His feet.

Last week, I was in the middle of a different battle.  This battle had blindsided me because I thought I God had won the last battle sufficiently enough that it had received a death blow.  It turns out that it was only mostly dead.  But God was good.  I cried out to Him and He helped me through it.  He didn't take me out of it and He didn't give me the power to overcome it, but the grace of Jesus covers it and there is where we have ultimate victory.  Maybe this particular war is in it's death throes but I will still have skirmishes until I get to be with Jesus in heaven.

But for that very reason I was shown mercy so that in me, the worst of sinners, Christ Jesus might display his unlimited patience as an example for those who would believe on him and receive eternal life. Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory for ever and ever. Amen.  1 Timothy 1:16-17