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Grace will respond to the least nudge of willingness and do in and through us a work of beginning again that our best efforts could not accomplish. That is how amazing Grace really is. Grace, literally, will help us rebuild our lives, and the starting point is our childlike admission that we need the help.
*Brian K. Wilcox. United Methodist Pastor and writer, author of An Ache for Union.
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I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners and need to repent.
*Luke 5.32, NLT
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When a little boy, I inherited an image of the recording God. Likely, this image was shaped by the fundamentalist sermons I regularly listened to.
Another version of the recording God is the recording angel. Rev. King Duncan, in his sermon "Pulling Weeds," writes, "In the doctrine of some churches this is the angel that writes down all the bad things you and I do in order that God can one day mete out our punishment. It is a disturbing doctrine." Yes, indeed, a disturbing doctrine it is, but such a horrific and infantile view of God many were, like me, raised on as children.
James Michener, in one of his first novels, The Fires of Spring, tells about a couple burdened with a load of guilt from the past. They wander into a Quaker meeting. They sit with others for what seemed like hours, waiting for something to happen. Finally, an elderly man stands up and speaks, saying, “The most misleading concept in religion is that of the recording angel. I cannot believe that God remembers or cares to remember a single incident of our lives. [Rather] I am the recording angel. My spirit and my body are the record. My good deeds show in me and my wrong deeds can never be hidden. My spirit either grows to fullness or declines to nothing. God has no need of recording devices. We must not think of [God] as a vengeful or shop keeping dictograph. [God] has created a better instrument. [God] has made me. [God] needs only to look at me, and all is recorded.”
The old man concludes, affirming that with God’s permission we have the privilege of erasing our past mistakes. God offers us redemption, opportunity to start new and make our lives useful by forgiving our past sin and by opening our lives to wisdom.
Likewise, Duncan notes that the late missionary and author E. Stanley Jones said practically the same thing as the man in the Quaker meeting. “We do not break the Ten Commandments,” Jones said. “We break ourselves upon them.”
So, whether the God who records all our sins or the angel who does so, many of us inherited a picture of God that we have to disown to grow more wisely and fully as spiritual beings. And we may find this purging of childish thoughts and images one of the most demanding tasks on our spiritual emergence.
As we carry inside and upon us wounds, scars, hurtful memories and their feelings, resulting from wrongs committed against us and ones we committed, we have potential of forgiving others, forgiving ourselves, and accepting the freedom to move on with our lives. This healing and forgiveness is what redeeming our past is about, and we cannot move on without that redeeming.
No, we do not have to do beginning afresh alone. The Divine will bring persons, teachings, insights, intuitions, ... our way to assist in the Journey of healing. Grace will respond to the least nudge of willingness and do in and through us a work of beginning again that our best efforts could not accomplish. That is how amazing Grace really is. Grace, literally, will help us rebuild our lives, and the starting point is our childlike admission that we need the help.
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*The materials from King Duncan was found at www.sermons.com [accessed July 15, 2008).
*Brian's book of mystical love poetry, An Ache for Union, can be ordered through major booksellers.
*Brian K. Wilcox lives with his two beloved dogs, St. Francis and Bandit Ty, in Southwest Florida. He serves the Christ Community United Methodist Church, Punta Gorda, FL. Brian is vowed at Greenbough House of Prayer, a contemplative Christian community in South Georgia. He lives a contemplative life and inspires others to experience a more intimate relationship with Christ. Brian advocates for a spiritually-focused Christianity and renewal of the focus of the Church on addressing the deeper spiritual needs and longings of persons, along with empathic relating with other world religions, East and West. Brian has an independent writing, workshop, and retreat ministry, for all spiritual seekers.
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