On the way home from our honeymoon a couple weeks ago Dana and I started listening to the audio book of Frank Peretti’s novel, “House.” The whole story is pretty suspenseful and doesn’t really follow his typical style of spiritual warfare. It mostly resembles a horror story of a haunted house, at least until it reaches the end. Toward the climax of the novel it becomes clear that the thriller is just one big metaphor about the state of our sinful hearts before God. As it ended, my mind raced to connect all the theology and implications of Peretti’s writing, which hit me pretty hard. When it ended, Dana and I both sat in silence for a while before sharing with each other the convictions of our desperately wicked hearts.

It’s easy to gloss over sin and disregard a lot of things that “aren’t a big deal,” but before God any sin is a HUGE deal. If even “our righteous acts are like filthy rags” (Isaiah 64:6), just think of how disgusting our sin is! All the negative thoughts that rush through our minds, the critical attitudes, and self-righteous pride — no one else may know about these things, but to God it’s repulsive. Thankfully, as Peretti’s book makes clear, the only way to be clean before God is by the sacrifice of Christ. And the only way to please Him is by allowing Him to use us in order to glorify Himself. No human effort will ever come close.

After hearing this book, I don’t think my view of sin, my heart, or my Savior will ever be the same. I pray my view of sin becomes as nauseating to me as it is to God and that my heart will always be a reflection of His purity.

And by the way, I finally got some wedding pictures posted. Our photographer put all the best pictures together in a wedding album for us, but was kind enough to give us some of the “leftover” pictures on CD at no extra cost. Enjoy!

Posted on August 11, 2006