All of us are not who we should be. To paraphrase John Bradford, “There but by the grace of God go I”.
Imperfection is a given. The question then is, what do we do with it?
Here are some thoughts from someone navigating this…
“When I was 19, I participated in a religious retreat called The Emmaus Walk. I was the youngest on this particular weekend by at least a decade and that proved significant. After a heavy session, men were encouraged to write down those sins they wished to be unburdened of and, in a grand symbolic gesture, take them forward and burn them.
Returning to my pew, I noticed that many men wept, sobbed actually, the bitter tears of regret. Noting my puzzlement, my mentor, a man 40 years my senior and whom I dearly loved, quietly sat down beside me.
“Why are they crying?” I asked.
“Son, those are tears of repentance. What you’re seeing are men embracing the grace and love of God.”
My face must have indicated a lack of understanding, because he put his arm around my shoulders and added, “You’re not old enough to have screwed up your life yet. Trust me. You’ll understand when you’re older.”
Needless to say, I now know what he meant.”
“It is Max Lucado, I think, who said that when David was good, he was the best of men, and when he was bad, he was the worst of men. And yet the beauty of David’s story is that the Lord forgave him and loved him even when men did neither. David’s testimony, both good and bad, forms part of the bedrock of the Old Testament Scriptures and it serves to both warn and encourage us.”
And Jesus is happy to be called, “Son of David“.
Here’s the rest of what Larry Taunton had to say.
