Burdens and blogging and the gospel

Not a lot of posting going on this week, and I started to get really burdened by the empty 'new post' page in my mind.  I don't want my blog to become my burden, but an encouraging outlet to stay in touch with my friends and family and to share what God is doing here at our house.  

My sinful heart loves to take a good gift from God (like homeschooling, raising my children, keeping my home, making good food, blogging, and the list goes on) and turn it into a burden.  I am naturally drawn to laws and rules, and that is a problem because I can't keep laws and rules very well for very long.  That is why I needed a Savior.

What does that have to do with blogging?  Well, it goes something like this:  Blogging is good and fun and one of God's good gifts.  I have no commitment to blog. But now that I've started, I feel burdened if I don't post three times a week with thoughtful, funny or wise posts.  I can be having a good week busily serving my family with mopped floors, cared-for children, carefully planned meals- but the blog is neglected, so I'll worry about that!  

And if it wasn't the blog, it would be something else- you know, so you vacuumed the floors, but you didn't move the couch to vacuum underneath.  The laundry is caught up, but you didn't organize the closet.  Dinner is ready, but you only made one vegetable instead of two.  The kids are all bathed and well dressed, but Sophie's hair needs to be trimmed.

The heart and core of all of this is that I trust in my accomplishments and good works for peace with myself and (much more disastrously) peace with God.  But only Jesus lived a perfect life, always accomplishing the will of the Father.  When I dwell on the guilt of the undone task or the unwritten blog post, I am full of pride of the 'just maybe I could do all this and then all would be well.'  

And that is prideful.  And God opposes the proud.  But God gives grace to the humble. 

So my hope and prayer is that, by the grace of God alone, I would put to death this manifestation of pride in my life and start to cultivate humility.  That when the guilt comes and the voice of sin starts in, I would remember the gospel again- Jesus, God the Son, lived the perfect life that I could not live, kept the law that I have broken by my very nature. He died a cruel death, receiving the full wrath of God that should be directed at my sin so that instead God directs his grace and love toward me the sinner.  The Son took the place of the sinner so that the sinner could be received as a son.  (in my case, as a daughter)

Take a minute to soak in this truth, found in Romans 3: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe.  For there is no distinction:  for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith... It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus.

There's not a lot I can add to Paul's words.  Let's be encouraged to remind ourselves of the gospel, talk to ourselves about the gospel, and preach the gospel to ourselves.  In this way we will protect our minds and hearts from being carried away into untruth, despair and sin.