I don't hate near enough

I love my life.  That's a good thing, but it doesn't always help me.  I love what I do. I love my wife.  Most of the time I can't believe she actually loves me, too.  I love being with the men that God let me have as sons.  I love the people I work with - you should be as blessed to have as much fun and accomplish as much as I do with the people I spend most of my day working alongside.  When I think about my life in general, I could not be more pleased.

But there are other things about my life - not my life as much as they are things about me that I don't like.  Well, I guess that's not really true because if I really didn't like them I would change them - wouldn't I?  This year as we have been learning together at CCC, God has been pointing out some areas where I am not at all fully devoted to Him.  Like anger for instance.  Would you think that someone that had a life like I described above would have any reason to get angry?  But I do.  More than I'd like you to know.  God has been showing me that, for the most part, my anger is caused by a habit I have developed that I need to change.  In fact, that what I am doing is sin.  I've committed to changing it.  I'm memorizing verses to help me change.  I confessed to my small group I wanted to change it.  But I've realized recently the problem is - I just don't hate what I'm doing enough.

I read some of the things Jesus had to say about sin, and boy, he made it sound horrible.   Things like it would be better to poke your own eye out than to sin.   Or that it would be better to cut your hand off than to sin.  Now, we know those are figures of speech, but the figure of speech is meant  to convey how much we should hate sin.  The truth is - when it comes down to it - I would rather have my eye and my hand.  It just doesn't seem that bad to me.   So, this week I'm praying that I would hate it more.  I'm still saying the truth from the verses I've memorized, and I'm still talking to the people in my group about it - but this week my prayer is that I would learn to hate more - like Jesus did.