piasharn | It's OK; I'm forgiven.

I'm doing my morning blog reading, and I come upon this post by Ampersand at Alas, A Blog. For those who don't want to click on the link, Ampersand is discussing a recent story in the Daily Mail about a mother who finds her children boring and the rather vehment response in the blogosphere from MommyBloggers.

I don't really have much to say on that topic. Being of a firmly Childfree mindset, my comments would probably be disqualified anyway.

What struck me was the description one of the MommyBlogger repliers had of herself:

"I am a saved-by-grace wife and mommy who strives to do things that will bring honor to both my family and to God. However, with my strong will and sassy mouth, I consistently fail to meet those goals. Thank goodness for forgiveness and the fact that tomorrow is a brand-new day..."

Ampersand comments, "With all due respect to Jenn, I’d hate to think God opposes women having strong wills and sassy mouths," and I agree with him wholeheartedly. However, that isn't the point of this post either.

Rather, it's the idea that this woman is frequently (and knowingly) doing things that she believes to be sinful, but she's alright with it because God forgives her. It's an attitude that I see a lot in my neck of the woods, and one of the things that irritates me about a lot of modern Christians.

They don't use their faith to make themselves or the world around them a better place. Instead, they use it as a shield to hide behind or as an excuse for their behavior. And as an excuse for not changing their behavior.

It's the guy who goes out and gets drunk, then comes home and beats up his wife, prays to God for forgiveness, then does the same thing the next weekend. It's the woman who takes a job as a pharmacist, refuses to fill a prescription for birth control, then claims her religious freedom is being oppressed when she is fired for not doing her job.

Talking to a former coworker one morning, she related to me how a relative of hers is always giving her crap for her smoking. "If God wanted you to smoke," she quoted his favorite phrase, "he would have put a smokestack on your head!"

"Well, did he ever have his appendix removed?" I asked her. After receiving her assent that he had, I suggested that the next time he started in on her for smoking, she point that out and tell him that, "If God didn't want you to die of appendicitis, he would have created you without an appendix!" Perhaps by having his appendix removed prior to it bursting was actually going against God's will.

(She thought that was a great reply, although I'm doubtful that it will have any effect. That sort of person rarely changes.)

Lets say that I went out and did something bad - got drunk and drove around - and was honestly sorry afterwards. I don't doubt that my parents, although they would be mad at me for doing something so stupid, would forgive me for my sin. However, if I did the same thing the week after that and the week after that, they wouldn't be nearly as forgiving. After all, we're supposed to learn from our mistakes, and the "I'm so sorry!" routine loses it's believability when you know the person saying it is just going to go out and repeat their offenses. I don't know about your parents, but mine would cease to be forgiving after a while.

I know that God is supposed to have infinite forgiveness, but I don't think that infinite stupidity is part of the package.