H,
It has been too long
but let us move on from excuses quickly. How have you been? I am sorry for the
long silence but you know about all that has happened. I have felt too ‘evil’
to approach this. Somehow too guilty and too full of myself at the same time. It
is the most curious reaction we have in the human soul that when we fail spectacularly
and sit in the dark that we start trying to avoid the light. It will only get
worse when we do this but we have that silly pride that tells us that God is
all or nothing at once.
This is a lie of
course and we know who the great liar is. The solution to our great falls is to
always find the great recovery. We are to live transparent lives of grace not
ignoble lies of stature. We are digging in the dirt for something real not
building mole hills for that paper-king of our own making. We have to come
back, like the prodigal son, again and again before all is lost. We should
never forget that failure is only the opportunity to begin in God again, a
little less self-reliant and much more aware of his love.
This is not an
opportunity for sin to grow in us or for laxity in pursuing holiness. It has been
told as a lie a bit too much that if you let people off the hook by offering unlimited
grace you create a gospel that lacks power to change. I have found it is the
opposite. When we tell people that they have no room for failure they only create
secret rooms to hide those failures in. They cannot be honest in that draconian
state so they cannot find truth and then they cannot be free.
God offers something much more. An invitation
to go deeper to the root of things. To be found out as you are and still loved,
to fall and then fall in love, to find that our many flaws and foibles are a
story He is building something beautiful around. The bible is full of imperfect
heroes save one. And that one says to us, over and over again: Go in freedom from sin and self, I do not
condemn you. May we learn to hear that voice at every turn and with every fall and
that until we are perfect at seeing grace, accepting love and being made whole
over a lifetime spent learning to look up at the full stature of God and not
down at ourselves.
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