{"id":367,"date":"2007-07-08T02:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-07-08T02:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html"},"modified":"2007-07-08T02:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-07-08T02:00:00","slug":"the-i-wish-i-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html","title":{"rendered":"The, &#8220;I wish I were mo&#8217; better&#8221; blues. (p4)"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>There is a &quot;tragicomedy&quot; in repentance, as well.&nbsp; The ancient writer, &quot;Fenelon, says that we need to make sure that our sin leads us to repentance, which will lead us into the Father&#8217;s loving care.&nbsp; When people struggle with persistent sin, I&#8217;ve found that the deceiver tricks them by being soft on the consequence of their sin before they commit it (&quot;you can always be forgiven&quot;) but harsh and unyielding once the deed is done (&quot;now you&#8217;re really going to get it!&quot;)&quot;&nbsp; writes Gary Thomas.<\/p>\n<p>He continues, &quot;This is a ruse to pull us away from our heart&#8217;s desire.&nbsp; When you sin, accept the lesson in humility and go to God in weakness.&nbsp; I&#8217;ve found I am rarely &#8216;stronger&#8217; than when I am newly repentant and receiving God&#8217;s consoling forgiveness.&quot;<\/p>\n<p>How many of us could add testimony to that last sentence.&nbsp; When we are considering sin, we are also isolating ourselves from the creator of our soul.&nbsp; We are tuning him out, but once sin has past, God remains with all of his grace and mercy and for the &quot;broken and contrite heart&quot; he embraces and provides all that we were looking for.&nbsp; And we wonder why we ever thought otherwise.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is a &quot;tragicomedy&quot; in repentance, as well.&nbsp; The ancient writer, &quot;Fenelon, says that we need to make sure that our sin leads us to repentance, which will lead us into the Father&#8217;s loving care.&nbsp; When people struggle with persistent sin, I&#8217;ve found that the deceiver tricks them by being soft on the consequence of&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":79,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-misc"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v23.9 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>The, &quot;I wish I were mo&#039; better&quot; blues. (p4) - The Jazz Theologian<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The, &quot;I wish I were mo&#039; better&quot; blues. (p4) - The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"There is a &quot;tragicomedy&quot; in repentance, as well.&nbsp; The ancient writer, &quot;Fenelon, says that we need to make sure that our sin leads us to repentance, which will lead us into the Father&#8217;s loving care.&nbsp; When people struggle with persistent sin, I&#8217;ve found that the deceiver tricks them by being soft on the consequence of&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"The Jazz Theologian\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2007-07-08T02:00:00+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Robert Gelinas\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The, \"I wish I were mo' better\" blues. (p4) - The Jazz Theologian","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The, \"I wish I were mo' better\" blues. (p4) - The Jazz Theologian","og_description":"There is a &quot;tragicomedy&quot; in repentance, as well.&nbsp; The ancient writer, &quot;Fenelon, says that we need to make sure that our sin leads us to repentance, which will lead us into the Father&#8217;s loving care.&nbsp; When people struggle with persistent sin, I&#8217;ve found that the deceiver tricks them by being soft on the consequence of&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html","og_site_name":"The Jazz Theologian","article_published_time":"2007-07-08T02:00:00+00:00","author":"Robert Gelinas","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html","name":"The, \"I wish I were mo' better\" blues. (p4) - The Jazz Theologian","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website"},"datePublished":"2007-07-08T02:00:00+00:00","dateModified":"2007-07-08T02:00:00+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/2007\/07\/the-i-wish-i-2.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"The, &#8220;I wish I were mo&#8217; better&#8221; blues. (p4)"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/","name":"The Jazz Theologian","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Robert Gelinas on Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/5e3ecb360405bd8603a61c7115194e01","name":"Robert Gelinas","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-content\/wphb-cache\/gravatar\/fbe\/fbe4a8ffc24002390e969652fba5c72bx96.jpg","caption":"Robert Gelinas"},"description":"\"For more information visit: Jazztheologian.com Robert Gelinas is Lead-Pastor (and resident Jazz Theologian) of Colorado Community Church\u00e2\u20ac\u201da multi-cultural, interdenominational community of 3000+ followers of Christ in the Denver area. Author of Finding the Groove: Composing a Jazz-Shaped Faith (Zondervan) and the upcoming, Strange Fruit: The Cross as a Way of Life (2011). Founder of Project 127, a ministry dedicated to seeing the day when there are no children waiting for homes in Colorado's foster care system. Robert deeply desires to see the body of Christ mobilized to serve the least of these. The poor, the down and out, the disenfranchised and disabled, those deemed unimportant and the unborn. He believes that God loves all people yet he has a special heart for the poor and the poor in spirit, the miserable and the marginalized. A Contributing Editor for Leadership Journal and Urbanfaith.com. He acquired a B.A. in Bibilcal Studies from Colorado Christian University and a Master of Arts in World Christianity (Missiology) from Denver Seminary. Robert is married to the love of his life, Barbara, and they have six energetic children (3 boys &amp; 3 girls--one bio, five adopted--two from Ethiopia). Friend of God...Passionate about the Body of Christ...Lover of this thing called jazz! Please visit Jazztheologian.com for contact info., speaking schedule, videos, Facebook and Twitter.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/author\/rgelinas"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/79"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/jazztheologian\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}