The Sins of Omission

Most people are sinners not because of what they have done, but because of what they have not done. The wretchedness of our lives could in some sense be attributed to our inaction during those critical moments of our lives when we needed to do something but instead chose to do nothing. It’s quite clear that it is not always something we do that gets us into trouble, but something we do not do, that we should’ve done. It’s been said that in our old age, we will regret not what we did, but what we did not do. To do nothing is a much greater risk, and I have had someone put it, though a little bit paradoxically, that it takes lots of courage to be a coward. It certainly does. It takes a lot of courage to do nothing, it’s the harder option. What were we supposed to do. Have we restrained our hands from helping, and have we shut our mouths from speaking.

By keenly avoiding to face some of the pertinent issues of our lives, we have allowed things to get messier, terrible and out of control. Our contribution could have kept things from escalating but we opted for silence. To date, we haven’t apologized when we should have ages ago. We haven’t shown up for the people we claimed we loved. We have failed to do our best as we promised. We haven’t shown kindness and compassion to those who needed it.

As it is, we always miss 100% of the shots we do not take. He who knows what he ought to do, but does not, to him it is sin, so the Scriptures say, he can be sure that his sin will find him out.

In Numbers 32, Reuben and Gad choose not to go to battle, opting instead to live by their flocks and take care of their children. Moses asks, “shall your brothers go to war while you sit here?” He warns them, “If you do not go forth to the battles of the Lord, and contend for the Lord God, and for his people, ye do sin against the Lord, and be sure your sin will find you out.

In his book Stillness is the Key, Ryan Holiday recounts the words of Nassim Taleb, that if you see fraud, but do not say fraud you are a fraud. There’s the choice about standing back, about not getting our hands dirty, about not getting ourselves involved in other people’s business, but that’s the harder and costlier choice. When we do the silent treatment in a relationship, whether it is with a partner, a friend, a roommate, a parent, a neighbor, when we keep silent when we should speak we act unjustly, and our sin will find us out. When we can help but we do not help, we are the world’s greatest cowards; we are frauds. Ryan goes on to says, the health of our spiritual ideals depend on what we do with our bodies in the moments of truth. The Priest and the Levite who passed by the injured man could have done something, they didn’t; they looked away, they walked away. When someone needed you, did you look away? He who is blessed with the world’s goods, and yet shuts himself up from helping one who is in need, does he not sin? Jesus says: do not refuse him who asks for your help. If you act, will it change anything? If yes, then act. When men take up arms to go to war, do not sit back and rest. Rise with them, go and fight with them. This could bring the just concluded protests in the medical field to mind, but it is more than just showing up with the placard. It is not about yelling, it is saying something when it truly matters.

The choice about living like a coward or dying a hero is ours to make, when we do the former, we can be sure our sin will find us out. Things may unspool themselves alright, the storm may calm without us not having acted, but still, we can be sure that our sin will find us out. The honey in the hive might be abundant, but it won’t be what it would have been had all the bees brought in their share of the nectar. What should you be adding to your team? Are you holding back when their goodwill depends on you? Is it your habit not to meet for fellowship? Do you make your contribution of prayers to the common stalk? What have you not done? Have you apologized? Have you clarified your intentions? Notice a need in the world, then do something about it. If you do not know how to help, stand up and ask, “excuse me, how can I help?”

Don’t be a coward.

Though He Slay Me, Yet Will I

Arthur Pink in his book Attributes of God explains that God is love, not simply in the sense that he loves, but He is love itself. Love not merely being one of God’s attributes, but His very nature.

When I did Kairos in 2023, a course meant to give weight and perspective regarding the need for Missions especially among the Unreached People Groups of the world― those who know nothing yet about our Lord Jesus Christ, one of the important lessons that’s still quite solid and fresh was the reminder: God has not only loved us, but he is working to transform us into people who love him. God has loved us, and he requires that we respond to his love by loving him as well, and we prove our love for God when we hope in him and trust in him, when we obey his commandments, and his commandments are not burdensome.

There’s no time that proves our love for God as when we are suffering. Suffering should lead us to a place of contemplation on the love of God rather than self-pity and resentment. Suffering and pain are not an end in themselves much more than they are a means to an end. Count it all joy, when you meet various trials, for you know that the testing of your faith produces steadfastness, and let steadfastness have its full effect, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking in nothing, so says James.

Our love should be fierce during those times when it seems much more difficult to love the Lord, so that with the three Hebrew boys, we may say as well, even if He will not save us, we will not bow down to your graven image…. This kind of fierce obedience proceeds from a place of love, that kind of love that casts away all fear. It is easy to obey God, to trust him, to hope in him when and if we truly love him. It is only love that can say with Job, though he slay me, yet will I trust him.

The third chapter of Lamentations recounts the sighs of a man clearly afflicted almost to a point of desperation, however, he proceeds to explain why he has every reason to hope in the Lord, still, because he knows that the Lord’s steadfast love towards him never ceases, and it is because of the Lord’s compassion that he is not consumed. God has been faithful to deliver us in times past, and he promises to deliver us in our current circumstance. It is also because of his steadfast love towards us that He chastens us, for every father disciplines the child he loves. We need to look beyond our suffering and pain, and see how it shapes us. Let us not suffer and be no better for it afterward, learn your lessons. You can trust God, you can hope in God, because he will never disappoint, neither will he cast off forever. Suffering produces steadfastness, and after steadfastness has had its full effect, we are perfect and complete, lacking in nothing.

Oh Sweet Success!

Even though suffering and pain has caused many of us to be resentful, I think that one of the most life-changing lesson we’ll ever learn is to be truly grateful for all that we’ve been through. Looking at my life, I can now see that it has been precisely those not so good circumstances that have made me what I am. Not that I am at my best, for I am making every effort to do much better, to be much better, and importantly, to be content. Not complacent, but content.

Success is counted sweetest

By those who ne'er succeed.

To comprehend a nectar

Requires sorest need.

Not one of all the purple host

Who took the flag to–day

Can tell the definition,

So clear, of victory,

As he, defeated, dying,

On whose forbidden ear

The distant strains of triumph

Break, agonized and clear!

Contentment is a choice, albeit a tough one. Most times we fret over what we do not have, when we are supposed to learn to be appreciative for what we do have. One thing that hurts gratitude and fulfillment is familiarity. When we imagine that whatever we have is normal it is easy to think that everybody else has the same privileges. They don’t. Dickinson says it’s only those who have lost who truly know what a win means. Someone who has always been winning, wouldn’t be as moved by another win as would that who has failed again and again. For the former, it’s just an ongoing streak, for the latter, it would come as a source of great joy and excitement.

To understand the sweetness of nectar requires sorest need. It’s only the thirsty who are are refreshed. It’s only by being intentional are we able to see and notice those who have carried us on their shoulders. Those who have guided us on our path. We will never automatically appreciate the strides we are making until we step out of our success and see all that is going on in the world. Then we can see how things have actually played out for our favor. We may not have all we desire yet but there are people who would appreciate that which seems dispensable and useless to us. For us it is just a normal thing, other people, and many they are, would be exceedingly grateful for such a blessing. This in part is the argument Virginia Woolf advances in her remarkable essay On Being Ill when she explains how illness opens up the senses of its victim. I agree with her, for it is when I have been really sick that I have had to imagine, and appreciate, the blessedness of health. Think of it, all the people who have not known a day of wholesome health in their lives. All those battling chronic illnesses, some even incurable. It is them who know the blessedness of good health, not us, who are okay for the better part of our lives. Success is counted sweet by those who never succeed, and we cannot tell so clearly the sweetness of victory as that person who is lying down, defeated, vanquished. We do not really know the pains of the world, at least not yet. Neither do we know that so many people― afflicted, hurt, crushed― would gladly give up their lives just to have ours.

I am what I am because the gracious Lord that He is, He sent all the amazing people my way. People who have guided me, who have helped me, who have encouraged me, who have rebuked me, and who have challenged me. Once, on my twitter thread, I came across a quote by Charles Spurgeon, “had there been some circumstance better than that which we are in right now, God would have placed us in that circumstance.” For some, we could attribute the terrible state of their circumstances to complacency, due to their failure to be diligent in business, but as long as we are committed to excellence, every circumstance just happens to be a checkpoint towards the next season of our lives.

There’s so much we take for granted as long as it is within reach, but when it is taken from us, then we can now understand what we are without it. We will lose friends and our loved ones at some point, then the part they played in our sanity and well-being, though probably insignificant until then, will become glaringly apparent.

It could be difficult, but we do need to cultivate an attitude of gratitude for who we are, who we have, and what we have. It is important that we notice people, that we notice things. Thirst, real thirst could just make a man realize that water is not after all tasteless. Let’s be grateful for what we have, and stop being anxious for what we don’t.