only bad things happen quickly… July 5, 2007
Posted by admin in : Christian Life , add a commentGordon Livingston, in his book “Too Soon Old, Too Late Smart“, writes
‘When we think about things that alter our lives in a moment, nearly all of them are bad: phone calls in the night, accidents, loss of jobs or loved ones, conversations with doctors bearing awful news. Virtually all happiness producing processes in our lives take time, usually a long time.’
Its true - much of the worthwhile changes in our lives take a long time, and as such we may not even notice the changes. We are an impatient people, we want a quick fix, we can’t wait for months to see change. We need to learn patience, we need to learn perseverance, we need to stick with people when others fall away because they are tired of waiting. We must not give up!
acceptance…
Posted by admin in : Christian Life , add a commentWe cannot transform our lives, unless we allow them to be transformed by that stroke of grace. It happens; or it does not happen. And certainly it does not happen if we try to force it upon ourselves, just as it shall not happen so long as we think, in our self-complacency, that we have no need of it. Grace strikes us when we are in great pain and restlessness. It strikes us when we walk through the dark valley of a meaningless and empty life. It strikes us when we feel that our separation is deeper than usual, because we have violated another life, a life which we loved, or from which we were estranged. It strikes us when our disgust for our own being, our indifference, our weakness, our hostility, and our lack of direction and composure have become intolerable to us. It strikes us when, year after year, the longed-for perfection of life does not appear, when the old compulsions reign within us as they have for decades, when despair destroys all joy and courage. Sometimes at that moment a wave of light breaks into our darkness, and it is as though a voice were saying:”You are accepted. You are accepted, accepted by that which is greater than you, and the name of which you do not know. Do not ask for the name now; perhaps you will find it later. Do not try to do anything now; perhaps later you will do much. Do not seek for anything; do not perform anything; do not intend anything. Simply accept the fact that you are accepted!“ If that happens to us, we experience grace After such an experience we may not be better than before, and we may not believe more than before. But everything is transformed. In that moment, grace conquers sin, and reconciliation bridges the gulf of estrangement. And nothing is demanded of this experience, no religious or moral or intellectual presupposition, nothing but acceptance.
Paul Tillich - ‘The Shaking of the Foundations’
This extract from a sermon by Tillich touches on something that we talk about a lot in our churches, but I wonder do we really understand what Tillich is getting at here, and even more, do we understand what it means to be truly accepted by another person. The overiding thought is that we need to believe that God accepts us. In some areas of the Christian life, we really need to just understand some things ‘by faith’; there is no earthly comparison. My thought is, with acceptance, can we understand the concept of this without experiencing it, in an imperfect way, from others created in the ‘image’ of God? What is it that hems us in; that prevents us just being our real selves with other? Why do we live as we perceive others expect us to live? Can the grace of God, by some divine act, break through and allow us to know that we are OK?