Grace on a Thursday: Freedom from the 'again'

Christmas Crash and Burn has arrived.

It arrived like an hour after all the presents were unwrapped Christmas morning. We hadn't even spent the day with the extended family yet, and I near collapsed onto the couch for a nap. I was exhausted, in part, because I had a sneaky six-year old who kept getting up at all hours brimming with excitement. It was cute, like, once. But after asking to do Legos at 3 a.m., getting caught with the lights on reading "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" at 4 a.m., and claiming to be starving at 4:30, I was no longer amused.

Christmas Day, I was ready to sleep for a week. But alas. School is out and gosh darn it if I'm not going to secure yet another week of fun and happiness for the kids! 

But, truth be told, I'm not all that happy. My house is messy, the laundry is piled high, gifts are strewn about on every counter, and the tree still stands, fully decorated. And I'm worn out, desperately in need of a girls' night. The time with family and my kids has been an incredible blessing, but rest is needed.

Yesterday, I finally lost it. I yelled at my kids. I yelled at my husband. I just wanted to skate away. Really a lot.

But today, in the light of a new day, I recalled the gifts God gave me this year for Christmas. {Remember this post where I suggested we ask God what He wanted to give us? Well, I did it.} One of the gifts that he spoke to my heart was Freedom. It is always a gift that we are free from the penalty for our sin if we have asked Jesus to rule our lives. But it was a different kind He gave me: the Freedom from being bound to my sin. That means, to me, that once I make a mistake, as a believer, I am free from having to make it again. I might choose to make the same mistake, but sin has no hold on me like it does for those who are not followers of Jesus. In other words, I don't have an excuse because He gives me an exit strategy every time. (1 Cor 10:13)

In her study Breaking Free, Beth Moore calls this "freedom from the 'again'," referencing how we, in our flesh, tend to travel the same roads of weakness, walking familiar paths of sin over and over and over. It is only through the grace provided by the blood of Jesus that we can break the power of the 'again' in our lives and live differently.

It is such a big deal, really. If I lose it yesterday, then confess and repent of my mistakes, there is no reason why I can't operate in an opposite manner today. That's power. That's grace! Jesus offers me freedom from condemnation, freedom from guilt, and freedom from being influenced by that sin the next time around. Who doesn't want that?! Through a steady dependence on Him, the 'again' can cease.

I am so thankful for that gift from God this Christmas.

Freedom to shake off the crash and burn of yesterday, and to let Him transform me into the woman He wants me to be today.