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Michelle DeRusha

Every Day Faith. Faith Every Day.

Monica Sharman

Defeating Sin with Snowball Fights

December 17, 2015 By Michelle

I’m delighted to welcome Monica Sharman to the blog today. Monica is the author of Behold the Beauty: An Invitation to Bible Reading, which I will tell you straight up has helped this lax Bible reader return to daily Scripture reading with a fresh heart {thank you, Monica!}. If you know anyone who has fallen away from daily Scripture reading, or perhaps has never cracked open a Bible to begin with, Behold the Beauty is a gracious, gentle invitation that will appeal to faithful readers and beginners alike. Read more about Monica’s book here, and be sure to stop by her website to say hello {and scroll down to the bottom of this post for a chance to win a copy of Behold the Beauty and one of Monica’s favorites, Knowing the God You Pray To, by Cynthia Hyle Bezek – email subscribers click here and scroll down to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing}. Welcome, Monica!

Text and Photos by Monica Sharman:

I live with four family members, and all of them are male.

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I still don’t get why snowball fights are fun. Why do they love being pelted with icy globs? To me, it’s like being hunted.

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But they have their great fun packing snowballs while I watch from inside and take pictures with the window between me and them.

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I heat water in the kettle and take out the marshmallows so the hot cocoa will be ready when they come in, red-cheeked and happy.

That’s winter. In the summers I worked with my young sons on the simple skills of catching and throwing a baseball. I told them how to position the mitt. I reminded them not to shut their eyes when the ball comes at them. I showed them that if they throw the ball with the right hand, they should step with the left foot (not the right, as they were doing).

Sometimes the progress seemed slow. At the beginning of one summer, though, I went to the backyard for one of the first throwing and catching practices of the year. They were much better than I remembered; their skill level was even better than it was end of the previous summer!

Wondering what happened, I told my husband about it. “They got so much better at throwing all of a sudden! I haven’t even been working on it that long!”

Charles’s explanation came immediately. “It’s because of the snowball fights.”

Of course.

Maybe the way to get better at throwing is not so much to “work on” throwing skills. Maybe we should just have snowball fights, and the throwing will improve automatically, almost without thinking about it. Plus, it’s fun.

behold-the-beauty-front-300wideThe Snowball Fight of Knowing God
If overcoming sin is the throw-and-catch practice, knowing God is the snowball fight. Maybe the way to get better at conquering sin is not so much to “work on” avoiding that sin, gritting my teeth and saying, “I won’t sin. I won’t sin. I won’t sin.”

Maybe if I get to know God better and better, increasing my intimacy with Him, then overcoming the sin will follow as a natural consequence, almost without thinking about it—like the snowball fights and learning to throw.

Could it be?

“And by this we know that we have come to know Him, if we keep His commandments. The one who says, “I have come to know Him,” and does not keep His commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him…

No one who abides in Him sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him.” (1 John 2:3-4 and 3:6, emphasis added)

I think it’s worth a try.

Knowing God more intimately—this is why I read the Bible. Plus, it’s fun.

“Remember, the goal isn’t to scan a verse for the right answer, note it, and move on; it’s to get to know God.”
– Cynthia Hyle Bezek, Knowing the God You Pray To.

::

monica-nov2012-200wideMonica Sharman is a home educator, freelance editor, and author of the newly released Behold the Beauty: An Invitation to Bible Reading. She loves drumming, poetry, and karate. She and her husband, inventor of Crossbeams, live in Colorado with their three sons. Connect with Monica on Twitter or Facebook.

I’ll randomly draw two winners – one to receive a copy of Monica’s book Behold the Beauty, and the other to receive a copy of Cynthia Hyle Bezek’s Knowing the God You Pray To. {Email subscribers, click here and scroll down to the bottom of the post to enter the drawing}.

 

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Filed Under: Bible, guest posts Tagged With: how to read the Bible, Monica Sharman

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For as long as I can remember, I’ve been a Triple Type A, “make it happen” (my dad’s favorite mantra) striver and achiever (I’m a 3 on the Enneagram, which tells you everything you need to know), but these days my striving looks more like sitting in silence on a park bench, my dog at my feet, as I slowly learn to let go of the false selves that have formed my identity for decades and lean toward uncovering who God created me to be.

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