Spiritual Bookkeeping

This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. (1 John 1:5-10 ESV). 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 to the 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. There are always those times in our lives as we "reconcile 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. These are times 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 To some people, faith may seem as outdated as the concept of keeping a paper checkbook.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. Use these times in life 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.