One of my favourite subjects when I was
at school was technical drawing. I was a
keen mathematician and technical drawing seemed to grow out of that. However, I have never had good control over
my hands and drawing neat lines was a problem. It ought not to have been a
problem since we used a tool called a clutch pencil and mistakes could be
erased. But that was where things always
seemed to get worse. My attempts to
erase failure always seemed to leave behind the evidence. As much as I loved the subject, my messy work
let me down time and again.
I intended to entitle this article, ‘starting afresh’, but ‘living with failure’ seemed more
honest. I thank God that his
mercy endures for ever, and that he gives the opportunity for fresh
starts again and again. However, even if
we managed to never make the same mistake twice, we often find that, from our
perspective, something of past failures remain in our lives, rather like the
evidence left behind when I tried to erase my mistakes on the drawing board.
But is that necessarily a bad thing?
If we have let ourselves and God down
(and anyone else), it is wonderful to know that God completely forgives when we
repent. From his point of view, it seems
the evidence has been erased. So, we
talk about what God forgives he forgets.
However, I’m not sure that it is that simple. Jeremiah
31 speaks about the New Covenant and in verse 34 God promises that in
that day he will not remember the sins of his people any more. But I’m not sure that the doctrine of
forgiveness and justification grows out of an inability to
remember. Is it that God cannot remember what we have repented
of, or that he chooses to forget them? Surely the wonder of salvation is that God
knows all too well our weaknesses but so forgives us that it is as if we had
never sinned.
I used to look at my technical drawings
with huge disappointment. The more I
tried to erase my mistakes the worse I seemed to make it. Of course, I should have been using my
mistakes to make me extra careful in future.
That way living with failure would have led to a positive outcome. These days, the essential tremor that affects
my hands means that I type rather than write, and try to be careful if carrying
anything with liquid in it, like a hot cup of coffee. I recognise I have a weakness and learn to
live sensibly.
Many years ago, when I was living in
community, we had a well-known painting of an English, blonde Jesus staring
knowingly out of the picture frame.
Beneath it were the words,” The
Lord turned and looked upon Peter and Peter remembered”. The picture was inspired
by words from Luke
22:61 and record a moment as Jesus was led from the house of the High
Priest where he was on trial for his life.
Peter had adamantly assured Jesus that he would never let him down. But, in the pressure of the situation in the
courtyard, he had three times denies knowing Jesus. What was in that look that Jesus gave to
Peter, that made Peter remember, then go out and weep bitterly?
Doreen and I once attended a performance
by the Rev Frank Topping of The
Impossible God. It had a powerful impact
on me. The dramatization of this story I
knew so well gripped me in a new way. It
seemed to grip the audience in the Stables Theatre in Hastings, possibly as
many had not realised the message and purpose of the performance. I found myself beginning to understand how
Peter must have felt. I was also moved
by the scene of Thomas meeting the risen Jesus.
There is a line which goes something like, “Those were not nail prints; they were chasms of love”! Wow!
Prior to this I used to state that it
was the baptism of the Holy Spirit Peter experienced on the Day of Pentecost
that made him a different man. But then I saw things differently. How important was it that Peter made such a
dreadful mess of things and knew that he could never put it right? How important was it to hear again loving
words and receive loving looks from the One he had failed, and who knew his
failure?
I do not believe in the so-called
doctrine of sinless perfection. I am not
glad that I fail and mess things up between me and the Lord, but I think that
living with failure in the light of God’s unconditional love is important. In my teens, I was a zealous Christian who
tried to be a better Christian than others of whom I was critical. When I heard about the baptism in the Holy
Spirit, I started attending special prayer meetings where people met to seek
this experience. I saw many of my peers receive the Holy Spirit just as people
did on the Day of Pentecost. But I left
these meetings disappointed. I could not
understand why God blessed others and not me when I was sure that I was at
least as good if not better than them.
Some months later, in a church meeting
and listening to a sermon from a man whose life I could see was marred by a
critical spirit, God met with me. As I
rehearsed his failings before God and asked why he had the audacity to preach
at me, the Holy Spirit withdrew from me.
In a moment, I knew why. The
faults I found in him were also in my life.
I prayed that God would take the bitterness from my heart and baptise me
in his love. Immediately I was baptised
in the Holy Spirit, just as the disciples had experienced in Jerusalem so many
years before.
My failure to see myself as I really
was, had become the reason I was failing to experience all that God wanted to
do in my life. There is an important
balance to be struck in the aspect of forgiving ourselves. God does not want us to cart around
unnecessary guilt when he offers forgiveness and reconciliation. However, it is important that we acknowledge
that we do mess up from time to time.
God does not look at you and me through some kind of divine
blinkers. The wonder of grace is that he
sees us as we really are, yet still lives us and offers us forgiveness. We also need to see ourselves as we really
are as we take hold of that love and forgiveness. Facing up to my mess, helps me to move on
with God, and deepens my awe of him.
From
the Diary
Tuesday 10th – HMP Gartree
Wednesday 11th – Churches Rural
Group (representing the Rural Evangelism Network and smaller Free Churches)
Friday 13th – Interviewing a
student moving into ministry.
Thank you for your fellowship.
Barry
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