March 12–Okie Speak

Happy Monday! Did you have a good Sunday? I surely hope so. We did. 

Believe it or not, I have been told I have a distinctive accent. I don’t know exactly why. My mama is from Kentucky, my dad from the Ozark Hill country and I grew up In Tulsa. So it’s quite the mix. My girls tend to sound quite a bit like me. (You’re welcome) I tried for years while I was working to sound more professional and hide my accent. I was convinced that someone who slung their words around like a country singer before country was cool could never be taken very seriously. After years of trying to keep it at bay, practicing holding it in and speaking with a little more culture, you would have thought I’d have lost my Okie/Ozark/Kentucky-speak. But alas, no. When I’d get really tired or excited and forget, it would burst forth! Finally when I turned 50, I gave it up. I decided that I am who I am and I’m just always going to sound this way. 

Do you ever feel like that about anything? Something that you would like to be different and try as hard as you can, you don’t seem to be able to fix it permanently? The way I speak May not be a sin, but we all have one or two of those things that we have to reign in every day, don’t we? The apostle Paul said he did. He even went so far as to say, “For I do not do the good I want to do, but the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”  ‭‭Romans‬ ‭7:19‬ ‭NIV‬‬. 

The apostle also said he had to kill that old man every day so he could die to sin. Sometimes those sins seem to come as naturally as speaking to me. However, I remember that Jesús died for me so that I could get control of that stuff and put it away. Is it always as easy as that? Absolutely not. And some of it I will have to beg God’s grace and kill it every day until He calls me home. Have you got any of that stuff? Sure you do. That’s just how we are wired, but praise God we have the wonderful grace of Jesus and we have the power of the Spirit to help us in our battle. 

“That means you must not give sin a vote in the way you conduct your lives. Don’t give it the time of day. Don’t even run little errands that are connected with that old way of life. Throw yourselves wholeheartedly and full-time—remember, you’ve been raised from the dead!—into God’s way of doing things. Sin can’t tell you how to live. After all, you’re not living under that old tyranny any longer. You’re living in the freedom of God...But now that you’ve found you don’t have to listen to sin tell you what to do, and have discovered the delight of listening to God telling you, what a surprise! A whole, healed, put-together life right now, with more and more of life on the way! Work hard for sin your whole life and your pension is death. But God’s gift is real life, eternal life, delivered by Jesus, our Master.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭6:12-14, 22-23‬ ‭MSG‬‬

Thank you Savior for giving us the power to defeat sin and praise you for your great grace. Thank you Spirit for the strength that helps us kill our old sinful self every day. You are a good, good Father and we lift you high. There is none beside you, none who could ever compare with the glory that you are. You are El Elyon, the God most high, our Lord and King. Amen and amen. 

Love you dear one,

Pam