Morning Devotional
February 25, 2003
"Spiritual Bookkeeping"

by Don Emmitte

This is the message he has given us to announce to you: God is light and there is no darkness in him at all. So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness. We are not living in the truth. But if we are living in the light of God's presence, just as Christ is, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from every sin. If we say we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and refusing to accept the truth. But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us and to cleanse us from every wrong. If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts. (1 John 1:5-10 NLV). 

If it were up to me to reconcile the checkbook, I doubt it would get done more than twice a year! Thankfully, Mary takes care of that on a regular basis. Even doing it once a month when the statement comes in, I still find there are little corrections that must be made to balance the account. I always seem to come up with a few plusses and minuses as compared tot he bank’s records. I always come up short-with more money to subtract from my account than add in. There are always things to fix in my checkbook.  

For those of the Christian faith who follow a liturgical calendar, the season of Lent, which will begin on March 5th, is kind of like one marathon session of "reconciling the checkbook." It is a time to examine your life, look at your minuses and fix them. It might even be a time to assess where your family is in its religious training. Lent is a time to reconcile with others and with God. I was intrigued when the Catholic Church began calling their sessions of confession with a priest, "reconciliation" instead of "confession." I guess reconciliation is a good word for spiritual accounting as well as financial bookkeeping. The real message is that even though we may end up with more minuses than plusses in our spiritual and emotional lives, God's grace covers our minuses. We may not measure up, but God gives us a new checking account every day to begin afresh and says: "I don't keep old accounts. Enjoy, and don't mess up today!"  

To some people, faith may seem as outdated as the concept of keeping a paper checkbook. Sometimes we as parents are at fault. I was reading one woman's account of trying to talk to her 12-year-old daughter about the spiritual message that she, the mother, was hearing in the song they were listening to. Her daughter was simply not interested. Then her mother realized that she had not instilled enough faith and religious teachings in her daughter for the conversation to have any meaning. How sad. Of course, parents can go the other way, too, pushing their children to go through the motions of religion, with the result of a child rebelling against that. Neither course is good.  

It is never too late for either situation: even though we may not have taught our children as well as we should have, or if we pushed them more than we should have, we can stand back, examine our approach, and begin to change. Maybe we can use this season of Lent, not only as a chance to pause and reflect on our own shortcomings and make amends, but as a time to take inventory of how we are teaching our children the facts and stories from our faith heritage. This can take on many facets: a spiritual check up can help us reflect on whether we are living out our beliefs in front of our children, or whether they hear one thing and see another.