My Brake Light and My Sin -- What God Showed Me

It started three days ago. "Hey, Andrea. I saw you driving around town and noticed your right brake light is out. Probably should get that fixed before the police stop you" one of my children's teachers said to me in the pick-up line.

I got distracted and promptly forgot. I guess it was not a priority for me.

Then today I was in a copy shop and a man pointed it out to me, again. "Miss, I noticed your right brake light is out. Better get that fixed."

"Ugh," I thought, "when am I going to take care of that!"

All day long I drove around town, but now I was finding myself super self conscious about this burned out brake light. I'm not kidding you, it was ridiculous. You may laugh; maybe you can relate. I found myself trying to avoid braking, by slowing down earlier than usual. I would try and time my transitions through stop lights so that I did not have to stop. One time, I thought to myself, "I wonder if I take a different way to school, if I would be less likely to see the police." And then I even took it!

I even saw more police cars today, than usual, and at one point, one came up behind me and I was sure he was going to pull me over. At the stop light, next to him, I put the car in park so that I did not have to put my foot on the brake. I was determined to not get pulled over for this brake light, and yet, I just could not make time to have it fixed.

As the day went by and my antics continued, I began to think. This is just like my dealing with sin. Again, maybe you can relate. Something is not right in us, maybe even hazardous, like a brake light being out can cause an accident. We may keep bumping in to God trying to reveal to us the specific sin problem, but we keep on trying to manipulate our way around it. We deny it or try to forget about it. We try to avoid it. We take different routes, trying not to deal with it. We tell ourselves that we do not have time right now. We'll take care of it later.

And in the process, we just keeping getting more bogged down by the problem, and it holds us captive. Sin of all sorts. Mistrust of God, fears, worries, gossip, words misspoken, and bitterness, to name only a few. All we need to do is confess it and ask for forgiveness, but we don't.

1 John 1:9 says, "If we claim to be without sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just and will forgive us our sins and purify us from all unrighteousness. If we claim we have not sinned, we make him out to be a liar and his word has no place in our lives."

Tomorrow, I'm going to bring the car in and have the brake light fixed. I don't like living in denial, fear and manipulation. Right now, I am going to ask the Lord to search my heart and help me to see what I need to confess. I know it's in there. And then I will ask the Lord to forgive me, in the name of Jesus, and set me free.