Thoughts on Romans 7:19

“For what I do is not the good I want to do; no, the evil I do not want to do—this I keep on doing.”
I think of myself as a good person.
I do things that make people refer to me as a bad person.
If both statements are true how can I rely on either statement to give me a basis for action in my next encounter with life?
This kind of cognitive dissonance (holding opposing statements as equally true) darkens even the brightest of days and sometimes dims the view of God’s grace in my life. I struggle with the knowledge that I am both people: the good and the not good. How do I continue to be good regardless the truth that I am sometimes not good?
Here are three propositions you can use to unravel truth when what you think about yourself seems to be challenged by what is happening in your life.
When one incident becomes your whole world, you have lost perspective. My life is not made up of one or two incidents in a day. What I did in 1966 cannot be allowed to drive what I choose to do today or think today. Certainly it informs it, but, does not dictate to it. My impact on the world around me must be kept in divine perspective. What would Jesus want me to do – is much more helpful.
When one experience is your whole world, you have lost context. A traffic ticket for speeding, while financially hurtful, cannot be allowed to drive how I respond to my wife when I get home. She may agree it is harmful to the family finances and my future use of the car, but, not my future relationship with her.
When one person can change your whole view of life for the worse, you have lost yourself. I need wise counselors in my life to help guide me through decisions great and small. Their opinion of my choices are helpful but not obligatory. They do not define who I am in God’s kingdom. They do not define who I am in my family. By using all of those voices combined with my understanding of God’s work in my life, I can see more clearly the person God wants me to see in the mirror of life.

Do I trust the one who entrusted his gift with me?

Last night, at a memorial service for my “little” brother Bob, the Pastor talked about trust. In the last eight years my family have been to four funerals for men of God serving on foreign fields. My father had lived a full life and we celebrated his life while grieving his loss to us. My younger brother died at the age of 53 having accomplished more in that time than many do in a lifetime. My brother-in-law, voted less likely to serve cross-culturally, planted a strong church network and bible college in Kiev and was doing the same in Kyrgyzstan when he was taken suddenly after a relatively few years on the field so we celebrated all he did but were hurt by this strong man’s passing. Last week my youngest brother died in Zimbabwe while serving the lost, lonely and least in the region in which he was raised.
It is very natural to ask, “Why him? Why now?”
The Pastor pointed out that since the giving of the commission God has entrusted his highest priority to his church. So I wonder if He is saying to us, “I have intervened in the past to save a life for my purposes but in this case, I know you can do what I have entrusted to you without this particular person who succumbed to the natural falseness of life.”
If I follow this path of reasoning then I am forced to ask myself if I trust God who has entrusted me with his precious promise.

Be the Father or the Prodigal but NOT The Brother

I was struck again by how easy it is to be the brother in the story of the Prodigal Son. The Prodigal attempts to create his own reality - in essence - saying to his father, "Your way works for you but I have to please myself so I am going to go my own way." When he discovers the loss of discipline, direction and direct contact with God leaves him without friends, funds or a future he makes a plan to at least have a roof over his head and a benevolent master for whom to work.
The father, of course, is the real star of the story and a challenge for any father to emulate. The fact that he had determined, even before repentance, he would forgive and forget, is a lesson to fathers everywhere that the consequences of an action is usually punishment enough for the penitent child.
It is the brother who reminds me how self righteous I sound when I require a time of repentance, acts of contrition, a period of ostracization before forgiveness will be given. How selfish I am when I demand my rights from someone whom God has received. Even as I write this I am uncomfortable with this complete a forgiveness.