Today's passage is Acts 9: 32-43. Peter travels about the country preaching and healing. He heals a paralytic in Lydda which lead to the conversion of many people. In Joppa he resurrects Tabitha, a disciple whose mission was helping poor widows.
At first I felt sorry for Tabitha because she was in Heaven and then sent back to earth for more work.
But maybe her brief time with the Lord meant that she would serve others again with a renewed joy and a chance to evangelize in a whole new way.
Or maybe the Lord blessed her with forgetfulness and her resurrection would be seen as a mark of God's approval of her as a good and faithful servant.
The paralytic's case is different.
Restoration to full-bodied life and work is an unmitigated gift and cause for praise and thanksgiving.
How have I been paralysed and restored?
How have I been raised from the dead?
How have I helped restore others in God's holy name?
Who has helped me?
Who has been God's instrument in my life, bringing me to a deeper level of faith like Tabitha?
Today I sprained my ankle and I'm hobbling around again.
Last month, it was a cracked bone in my knee.
I would welcome Peter coming to heal me even though my injuries are small and do not completely incapacitate me like paralysis or death.
My daily sins don't completely incapacitate me either but unchecked, unacknowledged and unconfessed they will paralyse me and then kill me eternally.
Since the New Year began, I have been looking closely at my habits.
I have a couple of good ones--reading and exercising daily--but I have lots of bad habits.
In looking at those bad habits it's pretty easy to see that not only are they habits but they're also sins.
To call them bad habits is to disguise the reality.
One sinful habit I have is making a joke of my negative response to someone.
The way I say it and the timing often make it amusing and surprising because people expect a positive response or at least a serious one.
I don't really know why I do it or when I started.
But I have recently become conscious of it and I want to stop doing it because it's not the response a Christian should give.
I intend to change my sinful habit to one of respect for others by giving appropriate responses.
I pray for God's help in this because I know how hard it's going to be to change a longtime habit I didn't even think was a habit.
Another sinful habit I have is looking at my brother in law with disgust and dislike.
I smile and am reasonably polite, but when I get home and see his shoes cluttering the entrance, I want to kick them.
When he fails, yet again, to do anything helpful in the apartment, I want to kick him not just his shoes.
When he eats, I find his manners and open-mouthed chewing disgusting.
His bathroom noises also disgust me.
I despise him for his refusal to make any of his own meals or pay his bill on time but instead spend his energy preening himself and dressing up to go some place where someone will give him a meal or buy one in a restaurant.
His whole way of living disgusts me.
The problem, of course, is my attitude, not his behavior.
I'm choosing my attitude.
The Lord helped me by bringing to my mind the gospel passage of Mark 4:24: "With the measure you use, it will be measured to you."
God will judge me the same way I'm judging my brother in law. That's scary.
The habit I will use to replace that sinful one is daily prayer for my brother in law and my necessary change of attitude.
Last week, Pastor Kim said that 90% of being a Christian is prayer and waiting.
That's the habit towards my brother in law I want to cultivate--prayer and waiting.
The waiting will be for my change of attitude.
Lord, give my your help to stop sinful habits and create good ones, ones that reflect your life and your word. Give me your strength to persevere to the end. Let me not be paralysed by sin. Restore me to your life.
