Deficit

In any area of my life when I get behind and try to just make it up the next time, it never happens.  I get farther and farther behind.  Farther and farther into deficit.

Here's just one example where I struggle.  We have a grocery budget and with the way my boys have been eating lately it has been almost impossible to keep within that budget!  So here is what I start thinking in my head to justify it, "Ok, I'll go get the few things we need and just take that $20 out of our grocery budget for the next  two weeks."  Here is where it gets frustrating though.  I will go into the next two week cycle with $20 less for groceries and am forced to go to the store and spend more money anyway.  I am constantly living in this deficit cycle that will not end.

When, in reality, I should revisit our budget and make room for a little bit more grocery money.  I should rearrange our monetary priorities and start over.  I should clean the slate and just try again.  I can't keep living in that deficit or we will get deeper and deeper in, all the while getting more and more frustrated that I simply cannot get a hold of our grocery budget.

Doesn't that remind you of something?  Okay, maybe it's just me, but when I fall short in any area of life it all goes back to my spiritual life somehow:)

When we struggle with sin, such as a specific "temptation," we try to just keep going and "try harder" next time.  When are we ever going to realize that it is not us that forgives and makes our sins as white as snow?

The Lord has offered total forgiveness so that we can pick up our bootstraps and try again, but this time relying on Christ's strength in us!

We have to be willing to let it go.  To give it to God and trust that He can take away that deficit in us.

Isn't it nice to know that you can start fresh?  That he forgives and wants to help us conquer?

Stop living in the deficit of your sin!  Ask the Lord for forgiveness, believe that He can and has forgiven you and rely on His strength to carry you through.