Those Pesky Stones

Tonights post was started on my birthday and finished a few days later, I then sat on it for a bit before publishing it.

As of today I have entered my 50^th year. Turning 49 was inevitable, it started happening the day I turned 48.  Just like turning 50 has the potential to be inevitable, I am hoping that it is. I guess we will have to wait and see. 

The other day I wrote a bit of a post that was all about hiding behind the shield of anonymity.  The internet has become a way for all of us to just not have to deal with the repercussions of our words.  It’s a dangerous thing if we are all honest.  The idea that all we have to do is just not put down who we are, instead just make whatever comments we want and when we do so  have no need to do the hard work of having an actual conversation.

Equally sad to me is the ease with which some areas of Christianity are so quick to hang onto things.  I do it all the time, it’s so easy to personally hold onto things that I should just let go. These things are hard to leave alone, simply because I can’t do what God can do.  See God can somehow toss things into this well of don’t remember.  Micah talks about it like this...

Where is another God like you,

who pardons the guilt of the remnant,

overlooking the sins of his special people?

You will not stay angry with your people forever,

because you delight in showing unfailing love.

Once again you will have compassion on us.

You will trample our sins under your feet

and throw them into the depths of the ocean!

Paul talks in Romans about our sins being as far as the east is from the west. In these verses and several others littered across the old and new testaments we can see Gods capacity for forgiveness and grace.  We also see and should understand that grace and forgiveness does not mean lack of responsibility or consequence.  Those things are still there and whether we face them now or later is really not all that relevant.  I wish I could figure out how that whole thing works, why some people seem to live charmed lives, you know the ones I mean, driving 80 in a 55 and getting a warning, meanwhile there’s the person that goes 57 in a 55 and gets the ticket, there really is no rhyme nor reason to it but we were never promised those kind of answers.  Jesus is pretty clear when Peter points to one of the disciples and says “what about him?”  Jesus basically tells Peter to worry about himself.  

The thing is it’s much easier said than done.  I think it goes back to our desire for things to be or to seem fair.  We were never promised fair but it bothers our understanding of what’s right and whats wrong in the world.  Why one gets away with something and the other doesn’t.  Why one person is free and another is a slave, why one Christ follower is born into a country that allows freedom to worship whatever god you want and so being a Christian is just part of life that is acceptable and another is born in a country that being a Christian means actual persecution, not the perceived persecution that so many evangelicals in the states have claimed because they get their feelings hurt. 

If we could all worry about ourselves instead of the person over there, I believe we would begin to have the type of relationship with God that is actually able to walk around in the cool of the day with God as opposed to trying so hard to justify our own actions based on the successes or failures of other believers.  

I do that, and I would bet you do too.  It’s part of the human condition.  We all have this desire to keep up with whoever we see as better or having more.  Sometimes it translates into this idea that we need to be further along, or that we thought we would be somewhere else at whatever age we are.  I base that on what I see others that are my age are doing at this point.  It’s a sad fact that chasing and idea of success will be a never ending race.  Imagine if we began to worry about ourself instead of someone else.  What would happen if we were more in tune with our relationship with God and others instead of with others and our stuff and their stuff?

I guess what I am realizing is the importance of connection first to God and then to those that are able and willing to be in communion with me as an individual.  I am the first to admit that not everyone wants to, and to be sure I don’t blame those that don’t.  In this space of loving and reaching out and sharpening each other, there is room for some and others won’t take up the space for whatever reason they see fit, and that’s okay. 

Someone put a comment up on another post of mine.  I moderate comments, the person asked if I ever were to preach again would I confess all of my failings that brought me to this space in front of the people there before I started.  Reveling in my failures it seemed.  That’s not how we are to be as followers of Christ that are wanting to be that iron sharpening iron type of Christian.  Doing so anonymously removes the opportunity for meaningful dialog as well as the ability for me to offer my regret and apologies and to ask that individual for forgiveness.  So whoever you were.  I am sorry that I hurt you, I am sorry that I was not the man that I was called to be, that I was supposed to be.  That I fell is on me, that I fell as hard as I did, is on me.  I did not intend to, but no one does.  A lot of things can contribute to the falls in our lives, some are stronger than others, many are stronger than me.  I only hope that anyone of you good readers who have stuck around for as long as you have, never have to deal with the things that helped drive me to the place where I was in February.  Please note I said helped drive me, I am not using them as an excuse by any means just a sincere prayer that none of you are ever tasked with dealing with the same things.  

And so I leave you good reader. Not for good but for the moment.  Pray for me as I do pray for you all.  See you around the blog.