"You're picking at your dinner," said John to his wife, Sharon. "Are you sick?"
"No," said Sharon, "I just have something on my mind."
"Care to share?" asked John, "Talking sometimes helps."
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Helen McCormack
"It's something that happened at church," said Sharon.
"What happened?" asked John.
"Well," said Sharon hesitantly, "I realized what a terrible liar I was!"
"A liar?" asked John surprised. "You are one of the most honest people I know."
"But I lied in church," finished Sharon with a tremble in her voice.
"I don't understand," said John, "Who did you lie to?"
"I lied to God," said Sharon.
"Come again," asked John? "What do you mean?"
"When we sang, 'Filled with awestruck wonder at the mention of God's name,' I realized that I'm not filled with wonder when God's name is mentioned."
"Well, it's just a song," mumbled John in excuse.
"No, if I'm going to sing the words their truth should show in how I live and act," said Sharon. "When I sing something like, 'Praise to the King of Kings, You are my everything,' I feel like such a hypocrite because if God was my everything, I wouldn't lie awake worrying like I did last night."
"Oh," said John as he began to understand, "You know, this morning when we were singing 'Lord I love to sing your praises,' I wasn't 'loving to sing God's praises' but instead I was wondering how many more songs there would be until I could sit down."
They sat in silence for a few minutes, pondering how this was impacting their hearts. John absent mindedly pulled the page off of their page-a-day calendar.
"Wow," said John.
"What," asked Sharon?
"Guess what it says on our daily calendar," said John.
"I can hardly wait to hear," said Sharon with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.
"It's from Proverbs 12" said John, 'The LORD detests lying lips.' "
"How timely," said Sharon, "God plans this doesn't he?"
"He must," said John "or it wouldn't happen so often!"
"I see that it lists more verses from Psalms and Proverbs," said Sharon looking at the page.
"I don't know if I dare read but here goes," said John as he paged through their Bible."
"From Proverbs 6," said John. "There are six things which the Lord hates; haughty eyes, a lying tongue ...' he paused and then said, "There's more but that's enough right now."
"All this conviction doesn't taste good with dinner," said Sharon.
"True, but conviction is a good thing if it leads us to confess our sin and gain a more honest relationship with God," said John.
"I suppose," said Sharon as a tear trickled down her face.
"The good thing is that there is forgiveness," finished John as he read from Psalm 130:4.
"But with you there is forgiveness, so that we can, with reverence, serve you."
"It's good to know that he does forgive and allows us to serve in spite of our sin," sighed Sharon.
"I agree," said John, "I guess we both need to spend time with God in confession don't we? Thanks for being willing to talk about this Sharon. It showed me my sin too. But I see one more verse here that I think we should read," said John.
"OK, I'll brace myself," said Sharon.
"No, it's an encouraging verse from Psalm 30," said John with a smile. "Confession brings joy! 'You turned my wailing into dancing; you removed my sackcloth and clothed me with joy.'"
"Thanks, I needed to hear that verse!" finished Sharon as a smile began to spread across her face.
Helen McCormack writes the Reflections column every six weeks. She and her husband, David, are serving with Wycliffe Bible Translators in Germany.