I was going to go see Bishop Willimon speak at FUMC Huntsville tonight, but I’ve decided that I need to conserve some energy. As it is, I’ll be at MUMC every other night this week with Holy Week activities, and it doesn’t look like I’ll be able take Good Friday off from work as I’d hoped to be able to do.

The great thing about forgiveness is not just the act, but that the act pushes us forward towards mending and harboring relationships. I did get the forgiveness that I sought last night, and I’m fully aware that I have an opportunity coming up in my life for a far larger dollop of forgiveness from, unfortunately, folks I’m afraid are far less likely to do so.

But the thing about forgiveness, again, is that it spurs us towards making it a habit. We’re made to be social creatures, and as such we care about relationships. I’m trying to be optimistic about the upcoming opportunity that I’ll have for that reconciliation. Father God, give me the courage to continue forward with a contrite heart.

Whoever noticed that we so often are angered by attributes in ourselves that we don’t like expressed by others was quite correct. I blew up today at a person I barely know over a slight that he didn’t seem to intend. There was definitely miscommunication on both sides, but what set me off was a perception of “I Am Right and You Are Wrong” being tossed down at my feet as a gauntlet. Rather than burying the hatchet there, I chose to bury the hatchet right through his rib cage—exhibiting the same “I Am Right and You Are Wrong” attitude back.

Stupid, frustrating, and predictable. Yes, I’ve asked for forgiveness. I hope to receive it.

²²So flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love, and peace, along with those who call on the Lord from a pure heart. ²³Have nothing to do with foolish, ignorant controversies; you know that they breed quarrels. ²⁴And the Lord’s servant must not be quarrelsome but kind to everyone, able to teach, patiently enduring evil, ²⁵correcting his opponents with gentleness. God may perhaps grant them repentance leading to a knowledge of the truth, ²⁶and they may escape from the snare of the devil, after being captured by him to do his will.

– 2 Timothy 2:22-26, English Standard Version

That’s quite convicting to me tonight.

This week’s study focus in Harnish’s Living With the Mind of Christ is about humility, and … that just hits home with me. Harnish discusses the subject in a number of ways, things that I’m still unpacking at this point and hope to make time to write about later this week. The key thing that he noted, though, is that true humility is neither being a dormat nor a license for an inferiority complex writ large, but rather is a focused attitude that is mindful of the fact that none of us is any better than the rest of us.

I’m sure that the ideal of humility is one to which we can all aspire, but for practical purposes, I think we largely suck at it. Yes, that’s why we have grace, but boy, is this ever something that we should press toward.

More when I’ve unpacked this some more.

As many heterosexual Christians do, I struggle with concepts relating to homosexuality. For one, it seems pretty clear that God believes that homosexuality is immoral and a sin. But on the other hand, you have the proclamations of many homosexuals that they feel born into their homosexuality and feel as if they have no choice. Like many Christians placed at this crossroads, I find it hard to deny their argument—because it’s never seemed to me that I’ve had a choice in my heterosexuality.

For some reason, a thought popped into my head this morning: being born homosexual is no different than being born a glutton, or an alcoholic, or a pathological liar, or any other such predilections. Frankly, we all have our own unique predilections to sin; great among my many sins is pridefulness and a need for recognition for good works that do not truly originate within me, but from Christ within me. [Case in point: I weblog discussion points I'd never make at church.] We cannot control how we are made; we can control what we do with our deficiencies and how we let them rule us. Not because it is easy—for it’s truly hard—but because, freed for joyful obedience, we must do so.

Or so goes my working theory of the moment.

I’ve been enjoying working with the Junior High Bible study at MUMC that our pastor, Larry Wright, has been leading the last few weeks. [I get to teach the last lesson on 30 Apr! :D] Tonight, we talked about belief in God, and one of the questions in the lesson centered on whether or not that it was a sin to doubt. The lesson gave the answer that it’s not a sin, arguing that all believers in Christ doubt, and that doubt raises questions that can be answered through study of the Word. Their argument, then, is that doubt that brings us closer to Jesus is not, in and of itself, sinful.

I think I’d disagree. If we are saved by faith alone [sola fide] in Christ alone [solus Christus], and if doubt is the antithesis of faith, then doubt is, essentially, something that separates you from Christ’s salvation; sin is often defined as anything that separates us from God.

I understand why this might not be considered an age-appropriate discussion—this lesson plan is age-appropriate—but I fear that we tread close to danger when we say that all Christians doubt and say that this is a good thing. I can’t consider faithlessness to be a good thing.

²³And Jesus said to him, “If you can! All things are possible for one who believes.” ²⁴Immediately the father of the child cried out and said, “I believe; help my unbelief!” ²⁵And when Jesus saw that a crowd came running together, he rebuked the unclean spirit, saying to it, “You mute and deaf spirit, I command you, come out of him and never enter him again.”

– Mark 9:23-25, English Standard Version

I think Mark’s telling of Jesus’s healing of the boy with an unclean spirit because of his father’s belief in Jesus is instructive: even in the midst of unbelief, of weakness, we’re given healing as we repent of our unbelief and place faith in Christ Jesus. That’s certainly powerful and instructive to me, a sinner greatly in need of redemption through repentance.

Randall Goodgame writes on the changes that happen to us when we forget Jesus:

If I am honest about the state of my mind when I forget about Jesus, I don’t like what I see. I worry, I flirt with temptations, I lose my temper, I lie, I cheat, I am threatened by all of the vices disguised as comforts for a man looking out for number one. But they are no comfort at all.

Totally relates back to yesterday …

I think that, when I slip up, one of the reasons I wallow in sin a while is because I just tend to be pretty hard on myself. Given that I grew up in the 1980s, I heard the “To whom much is given, much is expected” bit all the time as a “gifted kid”. Those who grew up in the same era know what I’m talking about—it was a mantra, and it’s a good thing, but … if you’re of the right [or, wrong] mindset, well … yeah.

So when I screw up—no matter if it’s big or small—I seem willing to fall back into whatever I shouldn’t be doing because, well, hey … I’ve already screwed up, right? I clearly suck and am incapabale of the self-discipline that brings me back to that whole joyful obedience stuff.

It’s silly, though. Very, very silly.

I’m finally back home. I’m looking forward to get back in the swing of things, and chief among them is back to studying, learning, and sharing.

Well, I figured that traveling was going to be too much for me in terms of keeping up with my Lenten sacrifice. While I’ve probably focused too much on that in the last 24 hours, I’m also quite aware that I’ve not cut out time to study. Mind you, as I sit here in the Wintergarden of the GM Renaissance Center of Detroit, this is the first “alone” time I’ve had in three days, but … still.

That’s why we have grace, to make up for our misgivings and frailities.