Over the last several days, there has been more   drama than usual at our house, and it all revolves around the family dog, Fenny.  I don’t know if it’s an allergic reaction or something else, but he has been aggressively gnawing on his back leg, to the point of rubbing the fur out and scratching himself raw.  As a result, Vonette and I have had to  resort to the “cone of shame” around his neck so that he can’t reach the leg, giving it a chance to heal.  Unfortunately, this has led to dog drama in the house.  What should be simple tasks, like drinking water, eating out of his bowl, and peering out of his favorite window by the front door are now much more challenging with the cone.  He can’t walk along the hallway without face planting himself by hitting the side of the cone on hallway corners, and he can’t patrol the back yard looking for bunnies because his cone keeps getting stuck between the slats of the fence.  You’d think he’d learn and adapt to his new lifestyle, but he is stuck in his old ways.  As a result, life is much harder for him than it needs to be.  

If we’re honest with ourselves, many of us are in a similar predicament as Fenny.  We may not be wearing “cones of shame,” but we are slow to react to God’s great mercies toward us and respond accordingly.  Romans 8:1 tells us, “There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.”  If this is true, then why do so many of us (myself included) struggle with living more worthy of Jesus?  Paul spent much of the previous chapter of Romans, chapter 7, lamenting about how he still wrestles with sin and doing wrong, even though he knows he should be striving for holiness.  Ultimately, we all still fight those sinful impulses, even though we too are called to be holy examples of Christ.  And when we fail, we end up in our own “cone of shame” instead of adapting to our lives with the Holy Spirit leading the way.  The good news is that we don’t have to be slaves to our old selves.  Paul continues in Romans 8:15, “For you have not received a spirit of slavery leading to fear again, but you have received a spirit of adoption as sons by which we cry out, ‘Abba!  Father!’”That’s the great news for us!  We can put our sinful selves in the past, and keep our eyes on Jesus as we go forward in our lives.  We don’t have to keep looking over our shoulders.  As for how we do this, Jesus reminds us in Luke 9:23 that we are to deny ourselves, take up our cross daily, and follow Him.  (Isn’t it amazing how He foreshadowed what would happen to him later?)  

Our walk with Jesus is ongoing and a daily struggle, yet when we keep our eyes fixed on our Savior, we can be a living example of Jesus to the world around us, not a slave to the fear that we can (and do) mess up now and then. When those days of failure come, we can confess our sins to Jesus, turn away from those behaviors, and move forward in the confidence that we are forgiven.  No more “cone of shame!”

Director of Student Ministries

Dana Miller