The problem is there are times when we don’t feel like we are a new creation. Like the group of women that met for an afternoon of lunch and shopping. At lunch they began to share some of the things in their lives. Superficially at first but then they moved into more intimate topics and details. It was like peeling an onion.
Finally one shared how she had recently cheated on her husband. There was silence for a few moments when a woman spoke up, “I cheated on my husband a few years ago. It took me a long while to work through the guilt and now I’m ok. So don’t beat yourself up. Everyone does it. Let’s see a show of hands in this group of women who have stayed faithful to their husbands.”
Only one woman raised her hand. One of the women who didn’t raise her hand went home to her husband. Her husband asked how the afternoon went. At first she was hesitant. Then she began to tell her husband about the conversation at lunch. “Only one other woman raised her hand. I didn’t even though I have been faithful and never cheated on you.”
“Why didn’t you raise your hand?” her husband asked.
“I was ashamed.”
She was ashamed of doing what was right in God’s eyes and couldn’t bring herself to admit it. She didn’t feel like a new creation at that moment.