I have always thought of myself as a FAIR person. I’ve known fewer people who are quick to forgive as I. And when it comes to giving mercy, I always want to give it because I know that I need it. And yet I wonder just how valid my assessments are after discovering how judgmental I’ve been when I thought I wasn’t. Self deception is scary!
Being a parent to a couple of children is one of the wake up calls.
You think that you’re being as fair and open as possible with your first child until you have the second.
You think you’re being free (smart and spiritual) and open, allowing that second child to experience life until you have the third child. And you think that you’re an exhorter and encourager until you have the fourth, and so on. I’ve more or less “lightened up” on each child. Our fifth child has had the best go of life.
There are so many religious fundamentalists that in no way see themselves as judgmental or opinionated. They simply see the Bible as a Word sraight from the mind and pen of God and so therefore they are only upholding what is TRUTH. They are just following the RIGHT behavior. I was once there. Every word in the Bible was true. To question the Bible was tantamount to heresy.
It all seemed so simple then!
And then I faced the real truth- about myself and the Bible. The winds of change are blowing.
Bibliolatry and self deception are such subtle and yet so very dangerous concepts, but once you come to the real TRUTH about the Bible, once you let other people in to your life with their views, once you begin to CARE about what other people think and have to say, a new world opens up miraculously.
Words alone are not enough!
We are all at different places in life and however wrong our approach, most are seriously seeking God. I like the way Donald McCullough put it. “But whether you’re waving arms with Pentecostals or burning incense with Catholics or sitting property wioth Presbyterians, whether you’re meditating to find enlightenment or praying towards Mecca, whether you’re communing with nature or chanting in the light of a full moon- whatever form you religious practice takes- you probably want to be on speaking terms with the divine, to feel that between you and God things are okay, to sense that you have in some way touched the mysterious forces of life or been touched by them.”
And when you do, the blinders begin to fall off!
You have just said so eloquently what I wanted to say yesterday but wouldn’t come to me like it just did to you! Thank you. Thanks for being here for us Ernie and having the words to express what I sense but don’t know how to express so beatutifully.