{"id":1787,"date":"2016-04-22T12:17:17","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T17:17:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/thedisciplemaker.org\/?p=1787"},"modified":"2016-04-22T12:17:17","modified_gmt":"2016-04-22T17:17:17","slug":"when-someones-secret-sin-is-exposed-to-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.navpress.com\/sites\/thedisciplemaker\/2016\/04\/when-someones-secret-sin-is-exposed-to-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Are You On the Cliff’s Edge?"},"content":{"rendered":"
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The day started out like a scene from The Sound of Music<\/em>. We had spent the morning in American Basin, an 11,600-foot-high alpine paradise nestled in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado. The meadow was full of mid-summer wildflowers, just as we had hoped. I half expected Fraulein Maria to appear with a quick chorus of The Hills Are Alive <\/em>as we wound along the trail. Columbine, elephant flower, Indian paintbrush, harebells\u2014it looked like a rainbow had exploded on the valley floor, the color interrupted only by a bubbling mountain stream that meandered through the foliage. Yeah, it was pretty sweet.
\nBut as we drove back down the windy, rocky dirt road toward camp, disaster threatened an otherwise perfect day.<\/strong>
\nAs we bumped along we came to a narrow, single-track section of road that perched precariously over a very <\/em>steep, very <\/em>long drop into a canyon. And\u2014wouldn\u2019t you know?\u2014a truck was on its way up, just as we were on our way down. We were at an impasse. So, after conversing with the truck driver, I began to walk up the hill to let the other vehicles behind us know that we\u2019d all have to back up until we could find a turn-out to let the truck pass. The first car I came to was a blue SUV.
\nAfter I explained the situation to the driver, she began backing up\u2026only she didn\u2019t notice her wheels were turned the wrong direction. Instead of backing up <\/em>the hill, she was backing off<\/em> the cliff. As her tires started going over, I ran to her window.
\n\u201cMa\u2019am, you need to get out of your car…right now.<\/em>\u201d My voice was calm but firm.
\nTime to panic yet?<\/strong>
\n\u201cNo, I can do this,\u201d she insisted. But as she tried to back away from the edge of the sheer drop, her tires slipped even further off the dirt road. I reached through her open window with my right arm looking for the lock to open the door to pull her out myself.
\n\u201cMa\u2019am, please. <\/em>You have got <\/em>to get out of your car!\u201d I pleaded. Now her rear driver\u2019s side wheel was off the ground, and her front passenger side wheel was dangling over nothingness. Didn\u2019t she see that if she didn\u2019t get out of her car, she was going to die<\/em>? Was she really completely blind to the imminent danger threatening her very existence?
\nI began praying, out loud and with conviction, \u201cGod, hold this car up! Send your angels to hold these tires up until she gets out of her car!\u201d Lucky for all of us, God loves to show up when He\u2019s all the chance we\u2019ve got. I\u2019m happy to report He held that car up<\/em>. Eventually (read: a few seconds that felt like an eternity later), I was able to get her door open and hung onto it with all the body weight I could muster because, certainly, little ol\u2019 me would be a big help to those angels keeping two-and-a-half tons of metal from tumbling down the cliff.
\nSafe at last.<\/strong>
\nThankfully, the driver finally abandoned the notion that she could fix this herself, and frantically unbuckled her seatbelt. Still holding the door with my left arm, I grabbed her arm with my right hand and pulled.
\nSafely outside the car, she saw just how desperate her situation had been. She literally could have died. If God hadn\u2019t graciously intervened, her blue SUV\u2014with her inside it\u2014would have found its home among the other mangled wrecks at the bottom of that canyon (and I found out later there were quite a few). But instead she was safe, and now three big <\/em>boys from Oklahoma clamored onto her rear tire and bumper to weigh down that car until help could arrive.
\nHer name was Rita. We sat on the roadside for three hours together (along with the Oklahoma trio on her bumper and a growing crowd of people who were trapped by the roadblock), while we waited for the tow truck that would eventually lift her vehicle to safety. Since she was pretty much stuck with me, I talked with her about God. A lot.<\/em> She didn\u2019t surrender her life to Jesus that day, but she couldn\u2019t deny God\u2019s existence any longer. I\u2019m praying that one day I\u2019ll see Rita in heaven, and I\u2019ll get to hear the rest of the story\u2014perhaps how that dramatic day opened her eyes to see just how much God loves her, and that she lived to see many more miracles in her life.
\nBlind and desperate, just like us.<\/strong>
\nAs I think about that story, I\u2019m struck by a soberi\"Unashamed\"<\/a>ng reality: Rita didn\u2019t understand the desperateness of her situation. There she was, tipping over the side of a sheer drop-off, and she thought she could fix it herself! How could she be that blind?<\/em> you and I might be tempted to wonder. But before we\u2019re too hard on Rita, will you consider another sobering reality with me?
\nWe\u2019re just like her.<\/em>
\nSin blinds us to the desperateness of our situations. It keeps us from seeing the danger we\u2019re in. Here\u2019s the deal: If you are caught in habitual sin, you are dangling on the side of a spiritual cliff. <\/em>I can\u2019t in good conscience sit here and tell you that it\u2019s no big deal. I can\u2019t just pat you on the shoulder and say, \u201cDon\u2019t worry about it, girlfriend. We all have our struggles. Just keep trying harder and you\u2019ll be okay in the end.\u201d Please hear me on this: You won\u2019t be okay in the end <\/em>if you continue in your sin. And I\u2019ll have to answer to God if I don\u2019t warn you just how dangerous willful sin is.
\nJust like Rita was oblivious to the extent of her personal peril, we can also be blind to the danger of our sin. So if you\u2019re caught in a secret sin of any kind today, let me stand outside your car window and tell you exactly why you need to get out right now<\/em>.
\n– Jessie Minassian
\nWant to dive deeper (but not off a cliff)? Check out more from Jessie:<\/p>\n