Broken laws, broken people

When we confess our sins to God, we might say something like, “I’m sorry, Lord, for breaking your commands.”  A few sentences from M. Craig Barnes’s book Searching for Home suggests how that’s not the most accurate way of stating the problem:

We don’t actually break God’s laws.  They are still standing whether we obey them or not.  To try to break God’s law would be like trying to break the law of gravity.  If you try it, you’ll discover the law always wins.

But when we violate God’s law, it breaks us. (p. 90)

Our disobedience doesn’t do anything to God’s commands, per se.  Because God’s commands are in place for His glory as well as for our own wellbeing, we’re the ones who get broken and hurt through our sinful disobedience.

Thank God for how He invites us to confess our sin and find restoration from our brokenness in Him!
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