The Mark(er) of Sin

Somehow, Nils always manages to get into something he's not supposed to mess with. And it's almost always something that we've talked about before as being off limits.

The picture above shows Nils after some marker usage. It doesn't show up very well, but it's all over his hands, down his arm, and even in (yes, in) his nose. I don't know how many times he's been told that markers, crayons, pencils and pens only go on paper. Not on the table. Not on the wall. Not on the floor. Not on his clothes.

Nils is our child who will get into everything that's off limits (and I know, some of it needs to be more out of reach, but the reality is that we're in a 4-room apartment right now, too). He has a propensity to forget the past thirty-seven times he's been told not to do something. I suppose we maybe all do. I know I do at least. Stupid original sin. That's what it was after all. Adam and Eve were told not to do one thing: eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge. But they go ahead and do it anyway.

Paul, in confusing eloquence, puts it this way:
I do not understand what I do. For what I want to do I do not do, but what I hate I do. And if I do what I do not want to do, I agree that the law is good. As it is, it is no longer I myself who do it, but it is sin living in me. I know that nothing good lives in me, that is, in my sinful nature. For I have the desire to do what is good, but I cannot carry it out. For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing. Now if I do what I do not want to do, it is no longer I who do it, but it is sin living in me that does it. (Romans 7:15-20 NIV)

Only Jesus can rescue us from ourselves. Only by living in the Spirit, and not following what we want to do. That takes work; it is a daily (hourly, minute-by-minute) choice. Jesus said that the mark of a Christian is love. I guess the mark of a sinner is orange, brown, red, yellow and purple scribbles up and down your arm.