Overdue by David Jeremiah

Overdue O God, You know my foolishness; and my sins are not hidden from You. Psalm 69:5   Last February, a worker in Maryland’s Silver Spring Library opened a package and pulled out a copy of a library book that had been checked out 73 years earlier. An attached letter said, “Dear friends, please find enclosed a book that came from your collections. The book is overdue, very overdue. I apologize for not returning it sooner. My mother borrowed it on my behalf in 1946 when I was only two or three and too young to go to the library all by myself.”[1]

Recommended Reading: Jeremiah 16:17-18

Though this woman had treasured the book all her life, she felt she couldn’t keep the book in good conscience, and so she returned it, although the library does not have overdue fines for children’s books. If something is nagging at you and making you feel guilty, don’t wait 73 years to confess it. Joseph’s brothers suffered decades worth of agony because of their unconfessed sin, but the shadows in their lives cleared up after they came clean. Proverbs 28:13 says, “He who covers his sins will not prosper, but whoever confesses and forsakes them will have mercy.” A guilty conscience is a cruel master. Are you overdue for confession? We can be… sure that any hidden sin in us will eventually display itself in an undesirable way. The time to catch it is now. Stormie Omartian