A little something I got over email...

A Smog in my Soul

by Robert J. Morgan

One day, as I was caught in bumper-to-bumper traffic, my
mind inhaled a dense cloud of "spiritual smog." Feelings
of guilt filtered through my heart like toxic fumes,
choking it with regret and raw memories. I was en route to
an early-morning breakfast, and I hadn't slept well. Too
much on my mind. Too busy. My defenses were low, and the
poisonous vapors seeped in.

I recalled a cruel word that I had written about a woman
who was now dead. I saw the face of a man, name forgotten,
whom I had struck in a moment's passion. I remembered my
failure to witness to Christ before a neighbor who later
committed suicide. Acts, thoughts and habits -- some only
recently confessed to God -- came to mind. I felt sick.

Christians are often seized by guilt for sins that are
already confessed and forgiven. Like many other believers,
I have felt sadness, shame, lingering regret, wafting
depression -- smog in my soul. It's one thing to confess
sin; it's another thing to accept forgiveness.

The Psalmist David said, "My guilt has overwhelmed me like
a burden too heavy to bear. My wounds fester and are
loathsome because of my sinful folly" (Psalm 38:4-5, NIV).
David, too, lived with regret.

But as I gripped my steering wheel, another of David's
psalms came to mind -- Psalm 103:12: "As far as the east
is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions
from us" (Psalm 103:12, NIV).

The distance between east and west is infinity. The two
never meet. Charles Spurgeon wrote, "If sin be removed so
far, then we may be sure that the scent, the trace, the
very memory of it, must be entirely gone."

I pondered this. When God forgives sin, he forgives it
completely -- as though it had never occurred.

But when I continue to brood over sin that God has already
forgiven, I underestimate his love, doubt his grace and
discount the scope of his pardon. It is as though I fear
that the death of Jesus Christ is not adequate, that his
blood is too weak, to justify me.

Accepting God's forgiveness, on the other hand, aligns my
thinking to God's Word. It separates my sin from my
forgiveness by the distance of infinity.

Psalm 103:12 dispersed my noxious thoughts. As my mind
cleared, so did the traffic, and I traveled on with joy.