But what do you do when the person looks up at you from the ground, muddy and mad, and says "I know what I'm doing. Leave me alone," and then begins the avoidance campaign. Or better yet, the heavy 'people who think they are so holy' campaign. When does love tackle and when does it speak parables that allow a person to go on with a good feeling smile and live as they please?
I'm an analytical/creative type. I draw plans on 12/1 graph paper before I build. I measure the degrees and the lengths and proceed carefully. I gather resources and study facts and requirements. I research pretty carefully. I'm not a tackler. But at what point does my omission become hatred?
I love lists. I make lists. There are some interesting lists in the Bible - all through the Bible. I love the happy lists. Love, joy, peace, patience, gentleness, kindness: things against which no law can be made. Barns over flowing, cattle reproducing, being the head and not the tail, blessing and not cursing. Whatsoever things are good, lovely, pure, true. . . . I like to concentrate on these lists. I believe that is wise and profitable.
But there are other lists in the same book, ominous lists. If you do these things, you will not inherit eternal life. Or the list that says anyone who does these things is blind. Or the list that says these behaviors bring damnation. That's a little too hard. Isn't that over the top? Damnation?
There are people who I love who live in those lists - with resolve. How much do I have to hate them to not try to change their viewpoints and as a result, their outcome. I'm sorry if this is a downer, but if you live immorally for the flesh, to the flesh, about the flesh, you will from the flesh reap destruction.
I know that it's about relationship. I know it's about grace. I know it's about faith, but faith that doesn't change your heart and life ultimately is not faith. That isn't my idea, I plagiarized it from the Bible. Or shall we continue in sin that grace may abound?
There are those who do great things who will be rejected because there is no relationship. It's not about works, is it? Yet there are the lists to help us keep life in perspective. They aren't so much a group of do's and dont's as they are a thermometer, a wind gauge, and a barometer that interpret the coming storm so we know to take action. If you are this, if you do this, if you believe this, you will live a good if somewhat troubled life and share the life to come. If you have this character and participate in these actions, you are wrong and you're headed for destruction.
And there will always be those who look up angry and startled from the pavement and say "I had it under control. I knew what I was doing. Mind your own business." How much you love them determines how bad that feels. Back to parables.
I was just thinking of a comment a preacher had once made: “King David, a man after God’s own heart, would not be welcome in this congregation because of his sinning.”
ReplyDeleteYeah, I have been despised for tackling a loved one. I guess it goes with the territory.
I have also been the one that was tackled, and felt humiliated even though my life was saved.
funny how we assume that David would be discarded for his sin without looking at any other part of his life. God had a very high opinion of David and when tackled by Nathan the prophet, David turned. It isn't the only sin the bible records, but it is the only one we think about in connection to David. Much more dire was his numbering of the army, yet we just don't accept that as a problem. I guess we don't like to relate to the sin of self-willed pride and simple disobedience. That wouldn't cause any congregation to reject anyone - least of all a David.
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