Stop, Drop, and Roll

One of the earliest lessons I remember is the importance of what to do if your clothes ever caught on fire: "Stop drop, and roll!" This was such an important lesson that it was hammered into our memories from kindergarten on. To this day, I have never seen anyone have to use this incredibly important life-saving technique. It seemed so important and urgent to teach to every child. All these years later I don't know anyone who has ever had to use it. How often did they think our clothes were going to catch on fire?

As teens, my friends and I would laugh about this. We wondered if there were other, more practical lessons that should have been taught to us that we never got. We may never have learned how to manage money, how to handle conflict with grace, or how to confront and stop a bully, but if our clothes ever caught on fire, yeah buddy, we were ready!

Thinking about this today, it strikes me that "stop, drop, and roll" may be better advice for our spiritual lives than for us physically. We are all familiar with that to do if we catch on fire, but we are, perhaps, less versed in how to deal with the spiritual crises that sear our hearts and souls almost daily. Looking into Scripture, I think it is clear that God does not want us to remain blatantly sinful. Neither does he want us to carry around an ever-burning load of guilt. When burning under the heat and weight of divine judgement, how does on " stop, drop, and roll?"

This may seem simplistic, but sometimes the best spiritual lessons are simple.

First, when you recognize your sin or your negative, rebellious behavior:STOP. Stop doing it.Stop justifying your behavior. Stop craving and chasing the negative gains if promises. Stop denying you are going against God's best instruction and guidance for your life.

Next, DROP. Drop to your knees and pray for strength. Drop the games and positioning that keep you from being real in the mirror and before God. Drop the habits or behavior that empower this sin. Most importantly remember that in grace God wants to remove your sin from you as far as the east is from the west. Therefore, drop the guilt and accept forgiveness.

Finally, ROLL. Roll on with your life.Decide to sin this way no more. Roll on in in the freedom of new patterns and without the burden of your past. Roll on knowing that it is neither your sin nor your past that defines you. You are defined as a loved, forgiven child of the King. As such, you walk on learning newer , deeper lessons in this life because you have mastered the power of "stop, drop and roll" by the grace of God.

Rolling because of Christ,
Jack