Should I confess them as sins? Should I justify them so I will not have false guilt? Should I just pray and not think and wrestle with these things? Is this working out salvation with fear and trembling? It was a tomato, a text, for crying out loud! But if we will be called to give account for every careless word, how much more every careless act?
How could we enjoy life if we are thinking every moment about our actions, keeping a tab on them? If we are every moment making sure we are doing something good?
George MacDonald said it best, when he writes,
'But, please, ma'am--I don't mean to be rude or to contradict you,' said Curdie, 'but if a body was never to do anything but what he knew to be good, he would have to live half his time doing nothing.'
'There you are much mistaken,' said the old quavering voice. 'How little you must have thought! Why, you don't seem even to know the good of the things you are constantly doing. Now don't mistake me. I don't mean you are good for doing them. It is a good thing to eat your breakfast, but you don't fancy it's very good of you to do it. The thing is good, not you.'
Curdie laughed.
'There are a great many more good things than bad things to do. Now tell me what bad thing you have done today besides this sore hurt to my little white friend.'
Truly, there are a great many good things to do than bad. There are many joyful, wonderful, beautiful things. But George MacDonald continues...
While she talked Curdie had sunk into a sort of reverie, in which he hardly knew whether it was the old lady or his own heart that spoke. And when she asked him that question, he was at first much inclined to consider himself a very good fellow on the whole. 'I really don't think I did anything else that was very bad all day,' he said to himself. But at the same time he could not honestly feel that he was worth standing up for. All at once a light seemed to break in upon his mind, and he woke up and there was the withered little atomy of the old lady on the other side of the moonlight, and there was the spinning wheel singing on and on in the middle of it!
'I know now, ma'am; I understand now,' he said. 'Thank you, ma'am, for spinning it into me with your wheel. I see now that I have been doing wrong the whole day, and such a many days besides! Indeed, I don't know when I ever did right, and yet it seems as if I had done right some time and had forgotten how. When I killed your bird I did not know I was doing wrong, just because I was always doing wrong, and the wrong had soaked all through me.'
'What wrong were you doing all day, Curdie? It is better to come to the point, you know,' said the old lady, and her voice was gentler even than before.
'I was doing the wrong of never wanting or trying to be better. And now I see that I have been letting things go as they would for a long time. Whatever came into my head I did, and whatever didn't come into my head I didn't do. I never sent anything away, and never looked out for anything to come. I haven't been attending to my mother--or my father either. And now I think of it, I know I have often seen them looking troubled, and I have never asked them what was the matter. And now I see, too, that I did not ask because I suspected it had something to do with me and my behaviour, and didn't want to hear the truth. And I know I have been grumbling at my work, and doing a hundred other things that are wrong.'
And he is praised. For with him, to know what was wrong was to begin to mend. For me, I do not know what is wrong--so how can I mend? How can I seek to be better? For it is surely not in questioning every thing, but perhaps in knowing what to question. Self-discipline in all areas (from the amount of tomatoes I eat to the amount of texts I let interrupt my time) is good; but to be self-disciplined in all areas is not to be right, nor righteous. One can be self-discplined while learning to be evil.
So then, I am left with this: seek justice, love mercy, and walk humbly with my God. Seek the Lord, all you humble of the land, who do his just commands; seek righteousness, seek humility. (The latter verse is in Zephaniah.)
God, teach me to seek justice, righteousness, and humility, to love mercy, to walk with you in humility. I cannot do so much; you can do so much more. I am in your hands, God of Abraham (a liar and in cases a coward), of Isaac (a bad father), and of Jacob (a runaway thief). I am not so faithful as they, but I am yours. I ask no more but this: teach me to do your will, for you are my God. In the name of Christ, amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment