CHRISTmas

 I have to admit I struggle with the holidays.  I love seeing my nieces and nephew and hanging out with my brother and sister’s families, but I still struggle.  It seems that no matter how happy everybody seems opening presents and eating dinner, there’s always a let down. A present we didn’t get or not enough of our favorite dessert.  I always feel a little bit like Charlie Brown, “I just don’t understand Christmas I guess. I like getting presents and sending Christmas cards and decorating trees and all that, but I’m still not happy. I always end up feeling depressed.”

As a kid, Christmas was all about presents.  Mom and dad always had us make a list of the toys and other things we wanted for Christmas.  I would get so excited because I imagined all the wonderful presents I would get, but I was always disappointed.  I could get all the presents on my list, but I felt like there was still something missing.

 As I got older and started earning my own money, I got really excited about buying presents for other people.  I would work very hard to find the perfect gift for everyone, but it became harder and harder each year to fill the bill.  I became more disillusioned one year when the gift I had bought for my niece was in the trash before Christmas the next year.  

Last year, I desperately wanted to do something different, to give everyone a truly meaningful gift that would never get old, go out of style or spoil. A couple of days after we got home from celebrating Christmas, my brother sent me a picture of the present I had gotten MaKayla, showing that it was being put to good use.  I felt pretty good until I realized that all of the things I bought will eventually outlive their usefulness.  Clothes and toys will be outgrown.  Gift cards will expire.  Books will be read and put on a shelf.  Picture frames will be stuck in a drawer.  Candles will lose their wax.  Yet, every year we buy all new toys, clothes, books, candles, and picture frames hoping to please our family and friends.  We often forget that there’s one gift that will never spoil or expire, and it cost us absolutely nothing.

  And the angel said unto them, Fear not: for, behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy, which shall be to all people.

For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, which is Christ the Lord.

And this shall be a sign unto you; Ye shall find the babe wrapped in swaddling clothes, lying in a manger.

And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God, and saying,

Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.

Luke 2:10-14

Through the birth and ultimate death of His one and only Son, God reconciled all of mankind to himself.  Our eternity and salvation is secure. We have been set free from our chains of sin.  Christ lived our perfect life, died our death and rose again to take his place at the right hand of God the Father. Through Christ, we are adopted as sons and daughters of the King, we are heirs to the throne of righteousness.  This the best gift we could have ever asked for, and it is ours forever more.  There is nothing here on earth that can measure up to this amazing gift purchased with Christ’s blood.  

So, buy your candles and gift cards; your toys and clothes, but make sure to remember that Christ is the reason for your celebration this Christmas. Without Him, we would have no cause to rejoice.  

Charitable Judgments

I pulled out in front of someone as I was leaving the grocery store on Monday.  As I drove home, I pondered what that person must have been thinking as they had to slow down to avoid a collision.  I know what I would be thinking..."Crazy driver.  Must be in a real hurry.  Obviously doesn't care about anybody else. She should get those ear phones out of her ears."   It was then it occurred to me, that none of those things are really true (okay, maybe the earphones).  I'm not a crazy driver.  I wasn't in a huge hurry and I really do care about other drivers; if there was a way I could have apologized, I would have.  It was a matter of not being able to see past some parked cars.  As I started to pull out, I was already too far in the intersection to just stop, that would've caused a bigger problem.  The problem is, when we've been inconvenienced, we tend to think the worst of the other person.  I know I do.

It happens anytime I'm driving in the dark.  I will have my brights on, and so will the driver coming towards me.  I turn mine off, they don't.  I judge..."Nice of them to blind me.  They obviously don't care about how their brights affect me.  How would they feel if I left my brights on?!"  Then, the inevitable happens, I forget to flip off my brights.  God humbled me.  I didn't do it on purpose. I wasn't trying to hurt the other person. My mind just wandered off with the music or thoughts about work.  There was no malice intended. I pray the other driver isn't as judgmental of me as I was of the first driver.

It happens at work, and at home.  I judge others based on my own (overly high) view of myself.  I believe myself to be infallible, and I hold others to the same standard. If I have dinner ready when you get home from work, I expect the same treatment when I get home from work late.  I get very unhappy when I come home on a Friday night and find the house empty and have to go back out for my own supper after I had cooked for them earlier in the week.  I mean, the could have at least let me know they weren't going to be home so I could have stopped before I got home.  I don't consider all the other things that have influenced them not being home or communicating with me.   I forget that I could have called before I left work. Communication is a two-way street.  It's just easier to put the responsibility on the other party.

God is continuing to grow me in this area. Every time I make an uncharitable judgment, I am immediately humbled.  God brings to mind an instant when I behaved the exact same way that I am judging the other person for.  He reminds me of my sinfulness, not to condemn me or to make me feel bad about myself, that's Satan's job.  He reminds me of my sinfulness to humble me, to be able to see myself more clearly so that I can judge the situation for how it really is, not just by how I was affected.  He forces me to consider the other person as I would want to be considered in the same situation.  Praise the Lord!

Karma

I used to watch a sitcom called "My Name is Earl".  The show centered around "Earl", a former lowlife who turned his life around because of karma.  In the opening episode, Earl wins the lottery, but is hit by a car as he celebrates.  He wakes in his hospital room to see Carson Daly talking about karma on his late night show. He believes he has found the reason why bad things keep happening to him...Karma.  If you do bad things, bad things will happen to you, but if you do good then good will come back to you.  Each episode of the series chronicles Earl's attempts to cross all the bad things off his list in order to have a better life using the lottery money.  This usually involved tracking down the person he wronged and making it right so he could cross them off his list.  It seems like a good premise and good philosophy to guide your life, but it lacks something....

If most of us were honest with ourselves, we would admit that we can all have this philosophy. We set up conditions for ourselves and others to live by. If I'm good, good is returned to me.  If I do bad, then bad will be returned.  If you're nice to me, then I'm nice you.  If you hurt me, then I hurt you.  What goes around, comes around.  I remember being about six years old and forgetting to take my vitamins and when I got to school, I had a really bad day.  I got a bad grade on a test and my friends weren't playing with me at recess. The next day, I remembered my vitamins, and I had a great day. I continued to remember to take my vitamins, and I had better days, so I began to equate the two.  I believed that if I forgot to take my vitamins, or washed my face before I shampooed my hair, or started applying my makeup on my left side of my face instead of my right that it would be a bad day.  I believed that I had control over my own life.

 Unfortunately, I put these same conditions on other people, but I judge them more harshly because I feel like I am have more willpower or more motivation or more drive to be good.If they made a mistake or hurt me, too bad.  Karma gives me an excuse for treating them badly.  I forget that I'm just as human and fallible as the next person, so I forget to extend the grace that has been extended to me.

You see, that's what is missing from this whole karma thing.  Karma doesn't allow you to make mistakes or bad choices because you'll always be waiting for the other shoe to drop.  It's meant to help you make better choices and to do good things and be nice to everybody else, but eventually the merry-go-round makes you sick.  You give up; you're motivation is gone because you can't be good enough.  Only God's grace, secured for you through Christ's death on the cross can change your heart.  Pastor Tullian Tchividjian says, "Only undeserved grace can truly melt and transform the heart."  Only then will we get rid of our own conditions and be obedient to God because we love Him and want to obey Him. And even if we fail, His grace is there to pick us up, dust us off and help us get back on the ride.

Seriously, a peacemaking team?!

  Last week at the daycare, my boss was having a problem with her computer.  She had lost the schedule she makes every week; it was just gone.  She had called in our tech guy to look at, but he wasn't able to figure it out because he wasn't familiar with the program she had been using.  When I got there, the tech guy had just left, and she was frustrated.  She had restarted her computer and managed to get some of the old information, but not the design.  I don't know anything about the program she was using or about "Apple" computers, but I do have some experience with losing documents and computers, so I suggested that she try cutting and pasting what she did have into a new document or a new program.  She was able to recreate the table and then cut and paste each person's information into the corresponding cells, but she wasn't able to find one of the worker's names.  As I sat down to talk it through with her, she thought of something she hadn't tried. All she needed was someone to talk to, someone to help her think through what she needed to do.

 The same is true about peacemaking...sometimes we just need someone to talk to, someone to help us see what we need to do, someone who has learned from their own mistakes. That's what the team is here to do, sit down and talk it through. It can be as simple as chatting over a cup of coffee. 

The pit of despair

My life changed with two words, "statutory rape".It was like, what I would imagine, being hit by a semi.  I felt so many emotions when I heard them...shock,shame, anger, confusion, guilt, embarrassment, humiliation, rage, hatred.  They became my pit of despair.  These are emotions I would continue to feel for the next 10 years and affect every relationship.  Let me back up and give you some context.

It was my senior year of college and I was getting ready to go to orientation for student teaching. I had just moved back into my house off campus after the Christmas break.  Since the beginning of the school year, I had been teaching the youth group at dad's church in Pendleton, IN and I also started dating one of the regular church goers.  He was 20 and the son of one of our more prominent couples. He lived at home with his parents and a member of my youth group who was a distant relative.  He had a reputation for being irresponsible even dishonest, but I didn't care.  You see, I was the last single one in my family.  My sister had just gotten married that July and my brother had been married for six years and had two children. I just wanted a mate, someone to go to dinner or a movie with, to not have to be single for the holidays again.

Our relationship started out rocky to say the least.  He stood me up on our first date.  I remember being angry as I was driving back to school and spilling my guts to one of my roommates.  She was sympathetic, but believed that I was being too hard on him, that my expectations were a tad high.  "Give him a second chance." she said.  For anyone who knows me, that's not my modus operandi.  I cut people off after the first disappointment, "Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on me." was my motto, but after a couple of pleading phone calls from him, I relented.

Things went pretty well from there.  We talked on the phone about every night(he always called me), and saw each other every weekend. He helped with the remodeling of the youth room and came to church every Sunday.  My mother and my sister-in-law were pretty vocal about their feelings toward him (neither knew about the first date fiasco) and so I hid my relationship with him.  The first my mother heard about it was the night of the Christmas party for the company where he worked.  He was late picking me up from my parent's house (another of my pet peeves), and mom got home to ask questions.   She was annoyed, but ultimately supportive (that took a little wind out of my sails).  It was a great night, he opened doors for me, told me how wonderful I was, bought me ice cream.  I don't remember why we weren't talking Christmas Eve, but he sent me flowers after my uncle died Christmas day, so things were back to good New Year's Eve.  I had come home to host a sleep over with the girls at the church and he came to drop off his relative.  For months to come, I would relive that night, looking for a sign of the turmoil that was to come.

The night before I heard those life-changing words, my dad called.  I was in the kitchen with one of my roommates and was expecting a phone call from him, but got my dad instead.  He informed me that my guy had been arrested.  That was shocking enough and when I asked why, he told me it was because he was AWOL.  I was upset, but it was endurable.  The next day, my mother called and asked me what I was thinking about in regards to him and I told her I was done, no more.  It's then she told me that she had asked dad to lie to me, that he was in fact in jail for statutory rape(that relative in my youth group) and that the girl was pregnant.

The rest of that day was a complete blur.  I went to class, but heard nothing.  My mind just kept reliving that moment and those two words, "statutory rape".  I was like a cow chewing his cud.
The weeks to come were rough, and I became an angry person.  I kept people at arm's length and pretended that I was fine. To make things worse, dad agreed to counsel the guy even after I begged him not to claiming it was "God's will".  What had once been a close relationship became estranged, and I withdrew, from life, from him, from God.

It took almost 10 years, countless crying sessions, a move to North Carolina and three years of talk therapy and medication before I was ready to embrace my pit as Joseph did in Genesis.  As Tara Barthel said in her general session at the Peacemaker Conference, I was forgetting three things my duty, depravity and destiny.  I had forgotten God and believed He had abandoned me.  I felt lost and alone because I forgot my duty to serve God, my own sinful nature and the destiny God had for me.

Joseph remembered and embraced all of those things.  He had had dreams about his destiny and he held onto those and his relationship with God through his journey from the pit to Egypt.  Never once did Joseph give up on the destiny God had for him, and when he was faced with the decision to help his brothers or let them suffer as he did, he remembered his duty telling his brothers, "As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today."(Gen. 50:20).

After I moved out here the guy committed suicide.  I felt mixed emotions...relief, guilt, frustration.  You see, I had never had an opportunity to confront him, to tell him how he hurt me, to understand why he did what he did.  I felt like I would never have closure or find reconciliation. I would never have the chance to tell him how much I hated him, and I would never be able to hear him apologize and grant forgiveness. What I never realized is I don't need that, I need to remember my duty, my own depravity and the destiny God has for me. I need to remember that God is always with me no matter where my pit is or how big it is, and He will always use the bad for something good even if it's not in my time or my way.  I pray it's not just me....

The Shutdown

Let me preface this post by saying that I am NOT a theologian, politician, psychologist, lawyer, social worker, doctor, news analyst, pundit or economist. For the record, I identify myself as democrat, but I am first and foremost a sinning Christian, saved by grace. This is simply my opinion based on my own experience as a sinner who is terrible with relationships.  That being said...

"Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit.  Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others."

Phil 2:3-4

I don't watch the news.  I find it, well, depressing.  As a kid, I used to love to watch the CBS morning show with Harry Smith and Paula Zahn.  They were humorous, and they seemed to care about the stories that they were reporting.  I never felt uneasy watching because they were professional.  They asked important questions, but they never seemed to back people into a corner or try to get someone to say something that could be used as a soundbite by a different network or political party. I'm not sure when all that changed, but somewhere along the way, the news became about opinion, pundits, blame, name calling and a constant battle for bragging rights. Cable news stations like Fox News and MSNBC trade barbs between anchors using terms like "lame-stream media" and "Christian Right".  Every reporter has a story to tell, and they are ready to make a judgment call based on that opinion (and sometimes the opinions of others). 

It's very easy to judge someone, I do it everyday, but I rarely do it charitably.  I assume the worst about other people's actions based on motives I think up in my head.  I assume my mom doesn't care about me because she's not home from work on time and hasn't called.  I get angry with her because I assume something about her motivation, I refuse to think charitably about her, I don't give her the benefit of the doubt.  I look to my own interests alone, out of selfishness and "vain conceit".  I do not humble myself and value her (or anyone else) above myself and think about their interests.  It could very well be that she simply forgot, after all I forget things all the time. Maybe she just lost track of time.  There are a million possible reasons for her behavior, but my mind focuses on the bad.  The media outlets and politicians do the same thing.

Please understand I am not calling the media selfish or saying that either political party is acting out of vain conceit.  I don't know that.  For all I know, they could be fighting for someone who is struggling financially or is hurting in ways I can't begin to understand.  I am saying that both sides seem to be concerned only with their own interests.  They are like two people just staring each other down, waiting for the other to blink. They refuse to attempt a compromise because it seems like weakness or treason.  They both assume the other is trying to somehow destroy the country all because they have a differing opinion on policies.  They see things as black and white, as either-or, all or nothing.   All the while missing the shades of gray that could have prevented a shut down.  And people eat it up; we thrive on the drama. We stand strong with our party, refusing to budge because we just know that the other side is wrong.  People post pictures and sayings on social media calling for salary decreases for Congress, a new president (like that would help), the repeal of the Affordable Care Act; they call our president names and look for the "Christian" solution for wanting him out of office.  They are making a judgment based on the friends they have, the cable news shows they watch and their own interests.

 Instead, what we need to do is what Paul tells the Philippians in Phil. 2:4, " Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of others." We need to stop making selfish judgment calls based on our own opinions of others' actions and start making charitable judgments based on God's value of them as His children and His call for us as Christians, to "love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven"(Matt. 5:44).   Could it be or is it just me?

Identity

This is not the way I envisioned my life.  I never expected to be 32 and still living with my parents.  I was supposed to be married to the perfect guy, teacher of the year at a top school, and living in the perfect house close to my family so we could spend holidays together.  I was supposed to be the envy of my siblings, the one who had it all together.  A check book that was balanced regularly, the coolest car on the market, the best of everything.  Instead, I live with my parents, work two jobs to be financially stable; I have a car that bounces around if I don't pump up the shocks regularly, that refuses to go up hills in the snow and my checkbook is far from balanced.  There are so many reasons I feel like a failure.

I am the last of three children, the baby of the family if you will.  I was never a stranger to getting my way, though sometimes it felt hard won.  I was the responsible child, the rule-follower. The child you never had to worry about sneaking out, drinking, skipping class or failing. School came easy to me, I never really struggled to complete homework or study for tests, but I never went the extra mile either. I was arrogant enough to think that I knew everything, that I was the smartest person in the room. Being smart was the only thing I had. I wasn't pretty, popular, good at sports, or band, but then came geometry.  I hated it...angles, shapes, theorems, proofs, if-then statements, it was a nightmare for someone who only saw things in black and white.  I remember failing my first geometry test, I got a 50%, and I was devastated.  I had never failed at anything.  I may not have been the best at everything, I may have been stuck in second chair in band, tied with other students academically, but I had never failed.  I was an A/B student and I would have been angry if I'd gotten a C on an assignment, so you can imagine how I felt when I saw that giant F on my test. I remember thinking how disappointed my mom would be, how she would lecture me about studying or telling me that I watch too much t.v.  How I dreaded telling her. She was disappointed, but more focused on helping me get better.  I think I hated admitting to myself that I couldn't understand something, that there was something I couldn't do.  I studied harder, and eventually pulled a C out of the class, but I have never forgotten that feeling of dread and disappointment.

I was hoping that would be my last experience with failure, but I have met many more along the way.  My freshman year of college, my first year of teaching, relationships, just to name a few.  I never understood that failure was just a regular part of life, we all have them.  You may have failed differently than I did, or your failures may have gone unnoticed by others, but we all have things we're not proud of.  Things we're glad no one else was around to see or hear.  I know I do.

Everyday, I  have to take a step back and remember that I'm not defined by my job, my bank account or other people.  I am defined by God.  He has called me to Himself, and made me an heir with Christ through his crucifixion and resurrection.  I am here to glorify Him, serve Him, grow to be like Him.  I am not here to be perfect, Christ was perfect for me.  I don't have to wallow in my failure because I know that through Him there is forgiveness, redemption, sanctification.  I can see my failures as learning opportunities, as what not to do the next time, but sometimes the devil can still get inside my head.  He sneaks in and reminds me of my past failures, calls me a terrible person and tells me that no one will ever really love me because of the things I've done.  He calls me by my sin, and I feel that pain all over again.  I have to preach the gospel to myself and remember that though God knows my sin, He has forgiven it and chosen to remember it no more.  Christ has paid the penalty for my sin, and I am made new.  I remember that though God my convict me of my sin, only the devil will use it to shame me.

Why Peacemaking?

I hate conflict.  My brain automatically goes into “fight or flight” mode.   My mind goes blank, my heart races, my palms get sweaty, my hands shake and my stomach feels queasy. I can’t speak, move or even process what is happening. My hatred (or fear) of conflict is so strong that if a movie, tv show or even a news interview gets heated, I will change the channel. When I was younger, if a classmate was being disciplined by a teacher, I would look down and try to pretend that I was anywhere else.Things only got worse when I became an adult.  I had never learned how to properly apologize to someone or to take responsibility for my own actions or feelings much less how to communicate to someone how they had hurt me.  Any problem I had became about who was to blame.  My parents, siblings, I even blamed God for making me this way. I firmly believed that if God loved me enough, if I could just be good enough, that I would never have any problems. 
When I was living in North Carolina, my doctor diagnosed me with social anxiety disorder, and put me on an antidepressant.  It helped for awhile, but it wasn’t a magic pill that just made my problems disappear. My relationships continued to suffer from my inability to apologize and talk to others about how I was feeling.  Anytime someone disappointed me, I would cut them off completely.  No need to hear apologies or explanations, they were now my enemy. I left friendships, churches and jobs.
Then a sermon Pastor Mike gave on relationships(an exposition on John C. Maxwell’s book Relationships 101) made me think I wasn’t alone in my hatred of conflict, that maybe there were others out there who had the same struggles I had. The sermon was a good foundation, but I still had questions that that sermon hadn’t answered.   I wanted to dig deeper into what scripture had to say about relationships, specifically about conflict resolution. I wanted to help people learn, understand and practice biblical principles that led to healthy relationships.  I wanted to teach what I had never been taught.  I looked into many different resources, but nothing had the biblical perspective.   There was nothing about considering glorifying God, owning my own part in a conflict or considering the other person.  I was ready to give up, but God had other plans.
We were headed to dinner one night, and as we all packed into our van, something caught my eye. On the floor of the van was a catalog for CBD, Christian Book Distributors.  It was open and I immediately noticed two books, Resolving Everyday Conflict and The Peacemaker both by Ken Sande. As I read the description for each book, I felt my prayer had been answered. I was so excited to read them, I downloaded them on my iPod as soon as we got home. 
As I began to read, I immediately saw myself in the stories Ken told.  As he described his “slippery slope of conflict”, I began to understand myself and God’s purpose for conflict more clearly.  I began to see how conflict could be something good rather than something to be avoided. I saw that conflict could be a way for God to teach and grow me while bringing me back to Him.  While I still experienced conflict,  I started to consider how I could glorify God in each situation.   I began to see conflict through the lense of the Gospel, rather than my own needs, fears and desires.  
If you find yourself struggling with relationships, I invite you to stay after church on Sunday, September 1. We will be having a “lunch and learn” after service to share more about the basic principles of peacemaking.  Classes will be Sunday mornings at 8:30, Monday mornings at 10:00, Monday nights at 6:30 and Wednesday nights at 7:00, starting Sunday, September 8.  The Wednesday night session will be doing something a little different, so I encourage those of you who have already been through the video sessions to check it out.  If these days and times don’t work for you, please email me, almaddy81@gmail.com  and I will work to find a time that suits you.
Blessings,
Amanda

Judging vs. Coaching: "American Idol" vs. "The Voice"

I read an article on Yahoo recently that said Mark Burnett believes The Voice wins in ratings because, "it's a kinder show.". That got me to thinking about one of Ken Sande's principles in biblical peacemaking, "Constructive Correction is a sign of genuine love." (emphasis mine).  Most of us will readily admit that the biggest reason we avoid confrontation is that it tends to be negative, judgmental, even humiliating, not constructive.  For example, I once had a principal criticize me for having a can of pop on my desk , but she found no fault with my lesson plan or my presentation.  Definitely not constructive.  Others may avoid confronting because they are afraid they may have to face up to their own faults.  (Ken Sande refers to this as "The Golden Result", meaning that people will usually treat you they way you treat them.  If you judge them, you will be judged by them.)

In chapter 7 of  The Peacemaker, Ken reminds us that, "He (Jesus) wants us to remember and imitate his shepherd love for us-to seek after others to help them turn from sin and be restored to God and those they have offended." (see Matt. 18:21-35).  We are to help others see their sin, not point and wag our fingers in disapproval because we "all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God." (Romans 3:23).  I believe it is here that we find the difference between American Idol and The Voice.

On American Idol, there are "judges", while The Voice has "coaches".  Those words give two totally different pictures.  When I think of a "judge", I think of someone in a black robe presiding over a courtroom (I love to watch Law and Order).  Others may think of someone like Alfred Molina's character in Monday Mornings, a superior who puts you in front of your peers to deconstruct your every decision.  Whatever you think of when you hear the word "judge", I'll bet it's negative.

A coach is perceived entirely different.  While some basketball fans may think of Bob Knight's infamous chair throwing incident (Google Bob Knight chair!), most envision someone who comes along beside you to help you correct a swing or a jumpshot because they have struggled with the same thing.  A coach doesn't just correct you, he (or she) encourages and motivates you.  They cheer you on from the sidelines.  They want you to succeed, and they discipline or correct you because they care about you and want you to grow.

As Christians, that is the biggest difference between judging and coaching.  When we judge, we put ourselves in God's chair and look down on the other person with a superiority that belongs only to God.  We put them down and make ourselves more righteous and that is not our purpose.  God is the only judge.  We can only coach. We must come alongside and encourage, motivate, and yes, correct.  But we must do so lovingly and with the understanding that we are just as sinful (if not more) yet Christ died for us anyway.  But maybe it's just me...

Dandelions and Sin

Spring has sprung, and along with the warm weather and green grass come dandelions.  Now, we as adults know that a dandelion is nothing more than a weed, but to a child it is a beautiful flower.  As I watched some  children at the daycare excitedly pick endless dandelions, I was reminded of how appealing sin can be.   You see, to a Christian, sin is like the dandelion, so attractive on the outside but dangerous to the grass and other flowers around it.  The dandelion seems harmless, even beautiful at first, so we just let it grow.  But before we know it, it takes over our garden and all that we have left is a field full of just dandelions.  So it is with sin. It starts small, a little piece of gossip about your neighbor, but because we leave it untreated, it grows and takes over our life, killing our beautiful flowers and leaving us with just dandelions and crabgrass.  The cure for weeds varies, but generally, you pull them and then spray your garden to help keep them from coming back. In the same way, we must pray and ask God for help in diagnosing and treating our sin(since it can be hard to distinguish) through bible study, prayer and fellowship with other believers who can hold us accountable to God's word. Be cautioned, just as there are many different weeds, so there are many different sins. You may get rid of your sin of gossip only to replace it with envy or judging. Therefore, we must continually pray, study and worship God so that our lives will continue to produce the fruits of the spirit.