Oops! Spellcheck, please.

Last Friday, April 17, 2009 in Washington D.C., the home team dressed in the locker room, yet the players didn't notice. As they were introduced on the field, no one noticed it. When the team was in the dugout, no one caught the mistake. Not until the sports announcers on the TV broadcast and the people in the stands saw it on the giant TV screen, did the mistake become known. Two of their star players, Adam Dunn and Ryan Zimmerman had on jerseys that had the team name misspelled. It read, "NATINALS," instead of "NATIONALS." The "O" was missing.

Someone who was sewing the name on the jersey, in their rush to get the job done,left the "O" off. Maybe they were out of "O's." Regardless, they just messed up. But they were not the only one. Whoever inspected the job missed it, too. It wasn't caught by the person that packed it in the delivery box. The equipment manager that hung it in the locker of the players, didn't catch the mistake either. It went unnoticed until it was revealed on the Big Screen in high definition for all the world to see.

No one would have ever known had the miscue been dealt with earlier. Instead, the mistake became an embarrassment to the team, the organization, the owner and the fans. Though the mistake was corrected during the game, the mockery continued as the story spread throughout the sports media network.

Mistakes, miscues, goof-ups and sin happens. Too all of us. But usually most of ours don't end up on a "Jumbo-tron." Imagine if the last impure thought you had, made its way to YouTube. Consider that "juicy bit of gossip" you shared with a friend was broadcast on the evening news quoting you as the source. What if you went to a movie theater, and your past week's sins were the preview to the movie. Talk about embarrassing.

I think many of us, even as Christians, think that our sins done in secret, stay a secret. In reality, they are not secret at all. Every thought, word, attitude and action, including our sinful ones are played out before the eyes of our all-knowing, holy Heavenly Father.
"O Lord, you have searched me and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord." (Psalm 139:1-4)

It is only by His grace and mercy that doesn't make our sin known to others. Yet be assured that though God is patient, He will not be mocked. As the Israelites discovered "your sins will find you out." (Exodus 32:23) If we persist in our rebellion against God and continue in our sin. He will allow our sin and its impact on our lives to come out for others to see.

Even as followers of Christ, we will stumble and fall into sin. But God desires that as His Holy Spirit convicts and convinces us of our sinfulness, that we get right with Him. The psalmist, David prayed, "Search me, O God and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me and lead me in the way everlasting." (Psalm 139:23-24)

When we do sin, if we will confess and repent of our sin right then, He forgives us and it goes no further. "As far as the east is from the west, so far has He removed our transgressions from us." (Psalm 103:12)