12-16-13<\/p>\n
The title of this essay is a double negative of sorts, but a decent aphorism. Its truth would be measured in doses of wisdom and experience and maybe a few bruises and scars: life. It is from the gaggle of family advice we tell children: \u201cThis hurts me more than it does you,\u201d and \u201cSome day this will all make sense.\u201d <\/p>\n
Like many life-lessons \u2013 and all aphorisms \u2013 we can harvest wisdom from turning the sayings around, maybe even discovering greater truths. At least fresher truths, which become attractive portals. I have often thought about the locutions of such life principles. Not catchy phrases, but succinct truths.<\/p>\n
For instance, anent friendship, how often do we realize \u2013 how often do we, in fact, cherish \u2013 that we cannot know true friendship until we become a friend. Maybe, more so, until we NEED a friend.<\/p>\n
Similarly, we cannot fully know forgiveness until we receive forgiveness\u2026 but the biblical principle is that we must forgive in order to be forgiven. To be conscious of the need to be forgiven, and to savor the feeling of truly being forgiven. <\/p>\n
Again, the next step, for our meditation, is that we cannot know the joy of salvation without having sinned. A common saying in churches these days is, \u201cTo get a blessing, be a blessing.\u201d These sayings are true, but we have to be careful to see them as principles, not \u201cChristian karma.\u201d There is nothing wrong with being mechanistic if it is spiritual \u2013 remember, after all, the Latin phrase \u201cDeus ex machina,\u201d which, classroom drama lessons aside, means \u201cthe way God works.\u201d<\/p>\n
The irony in that truth about salvation should make us stop and think, and respect, this life we lead under God\u2019s grace. Is it good that we sin? Of course not. Is it God\u2019s will? God forbid. But He has provided pathways for us, and answers to life\u2019s problems. \u201cWhere sin abounds, there grace abounds more\u201d (Romans 5:20).<\/p>\n
Let us remind ourselves of partially obscured principles of the kingdom that we see through a glass darkly. We are more special than the angels, and among the reasons is the fact that angels can never know the joy of salvation. They are never able to sing \u201cAmazing Grace, how sweet the sound, that saved a wretch like me.\u201d The bonds of sin seem different to us, less oppressive, when we consider this.<\/p>\n
We can gnash our teeth when we feel like victims of life\u2019s circumstances. But how sweet when we hold to that thread of hope, maintaining by God\u2019s grace a glimmer of faith, and deliverance comes. To venture back to concise aphorisms, we cannot know answers unless we cry out with questions. There is no progress until you actually take that pesky first step. <\/p>\n
I wrote above that we might never know real friendship until we need a friend. Self-evident? Not always. And we need to recognize that God sometimes works through circumstances (my source: um, the entire Bible, and the lives of uncountable believers through history). He also works through unlikely channels \u2013 that is called Grace. And He works through sometimes unlikely persons \u2013 they are called Friends. <\/p>\n
\u201cGod works in mysterious ways\u201d? His ways are not all that mysterious. We just don\u2019t see them clearly enough, or often enough.<\/p>\n
+ + +<\/p>\n
The trio Selah provides a musical illustration to these thoughts, melding two time-honored hymns of the church\u2026 as only they can.<\/p>\n