Black and Gray

"I have a problem," I told my friend Ann tonight as I was getting ready to leave AWANA.

"What's that?" she asked, turning to give me her full attention.

"My cell phone and keys were taken from my coat pocket," I replied, digging my hands around my empty pockets as if to emphasize my point.

She launched immediately into action. I'm telling you, based on the team that was assembled within three minutes of my complaint, our church's AWANA is the place you want to be if you're the victim of a crime.

Soon there were five or six people in brightly colored AWANA shirts ready to help. We looked through coats in the coat rack, we scanned the teens milling in their Youth group, we even called my cell phone to see if the perpetrator would pick up.

There was no trace of my phone or my keys. I was already not feeling well, and this was not looking like it was going to end on the top ten list of nights I'd like to relive.

Then someone made a suggestion. Was it possible that I had put on the wrong coat? I was willing to be open minded. After all, it was Steve's coat that I was wearing, and I wasn't all that familiar with it. I knew it was gray (check), I knew it zipped (check), I knew it fit me and it was lightweight (check, check).

But wait a minute....I think the zipper was a little different...

Okay, so now I realized that I had the wrong coat. Hanging someone else's coat back on the hanger, I scanned the rack again. I felt a little more than slightly embarrassed at this point, but I continued my search.

I looked one way, and my friend Vicki looked the other. No gray coat on my end. No gray coat on her end.

"Okay," I said. "Now we're looking for my stolen keys, my stolen phone, and my stolen coat." I was joking around, but I was more than a little nervous.

"I think your coat is black," my daughter piped in, watching the show.

"No, it's gray," I corrected her. But a seed of doubt was planted...

I looked through the coat rack one more time, and sure enough, I found my coat with my keys and phone right where I left them.

"Um, I found it!" I said sheepishly.

"Crystal," Ann said sweetly, "That coat is black, dear."

"Looks gray to me!" I responded back, thanking them profusely for their time and effort on my behalf as I scuttled out the door.

When I got to the van, I took my phone and called Steve to tell him about my embarrassing adventure. "So I told them to look for your gray coat," I began before getting interrupted.

"You mean my black coat," Steve said.

"It's gray, isn't it?" I asked with much less conviction than before.

"Crystal, that is the blackest a coat could ever be," he answered.

So there it was. An entire AWANA manhunt (or should I say coathunt) all based on my inability to distinguish shades of color. The difference between black and gray meant ten minutes of time to six people, and could have been much more than that had we gone the next step and started putting kids under bright lights to find the perpetrator.

As I drove home reflecting on this whole adventure, I thought of the book that just arrived from Amazon today. I ordered it a couple days ago after my pastor recommended it during his sermon. The title of the book is, Respectable Sins by Jerry Bridges, and though I haven't read it yet, the back of the book promises that it deals with those sins that sometimes get ignored as we concentrate on the bigger, bolder sins of life. The sins that we sometimes pass on as "not so bad," like vanity, greed, worry, and pride.

As I learned very well tonight, people can see shades of color very differently. But God doesn't see sin in shades. There is not a degree of sin ladder in God's eyes. In His Word, He says, "For the wages of sin is death." (Romans 6:23) It doesn't say the wages of big sin is death, it says sin. All sin.

We need to be on the lookout for sin in our lives that has taken on a shade of gray. Sin that we have turned around and upside down and placed under rose-colored glass until we make it so it looks okay. We need to identify those areas and ask God to help us change them.

The good news is that, "For the wages of sin is death" isn't the end of the story. The conclusion is the best part. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Through Christ, we can be as white as snow.

Removing the black and gray will make our life on earth better. Accepting the white that Christ offers through His sacrifice on the cross makes our eternity heavenly.