Winter Layers
Late winter in NoDak can be depressing. Warm days of thawing are cruel jokes that tease you with temporary warmth but leave you with a gray slop punch line. Cold days leave you wondering, "How long will this unbearable Arctic season last?" Your body begs for a week of warm sunshine, and you want to go outside without gloves. The warmth of extra layers has become more inhibiting than comforting, and people get crabby. I relate the feeling all the way back to Adam and Eve. In a sinless state, the two were "naked and not ashamed." After an act of disobedience, they were covered with crude clothes, hiding their nakedness from God. Things were never the same in the garden again. People were crabby there, too.
The concept of being born in sin is one I accept and understand better because of my Dakota roots. It's like being stuck with too many layers of clothes on during a bleak stretch of weather. I want to be free, naked and unashamed, but I find myself with extra clothes on--hats and gloves and heavy boots. To become as free as I wish to be, two things must happen--warmer weather and my willingness to strip off the layers.
One is within my control--the other is not. This is the case in our faith lives. Our willingness to strip off the sometimes comforting, sometimes repressing layers of sin is within our control. As the writer to the Hebrews stated at the beginning of Chapter 12, "let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely...." That is our responsibility.
The gentle warm breezes of God's grace, however, are far beyond us. We have no control over them, no more than the arrival of this year's Spring. I'm reminded of the children in C.S. Lewis's book, The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe. They arrived in a land of perpetual winter, a condition imposed by a witch's curse. Upon the arrival of the Christ figure, Aslan the Lion, the warm breezes begin to blow, and the children shed their heavy fur coats while, much to their amazement, the countryside comes alive.
Jesus presence guarantees the warm breezes. Sin's cold grip is gone. His grace is a permanent fix not to be doubted. Grace never leaves us looking for layers of protection. It is warmth that knows no season.
However, we must strip down. We must throw off the layers of pride, dishonesty, and selfishness that we've used for protection all of our lives. These sins of self-preservation must be discarded until we are naked enough to fully sense the warmth that Jesus died to give us. It's there. We need only feel it on our self-exposed skin.
About the Author:
Steve Graner is a Christian educator and familyman employed by the Minot, ND Public School District. A licensed laypastor, he is passionate about Christian writing and Christian drama. Along with family and friends, Steve has performed numerous self-written dramas and musicals for area church audiences.