RAIN

Tomorrow should be a challenging day: 160 hot, humid miles across Indiana on a bicycle. We drive to Terre Haute tonight, get up early on Saturday and to Richmond by late afternoon; I 'm hoping we're done by around 5.

It's amazing what we'll put ourselves through for the sake of group membership and a sense of accomplishment!

Go Team Dog!

Grace

Everybody in the world wants a second chance . . .

. . . until it’s someone else who desperately needs a second chance. Then, too often, it’s, “They don’t deserve another chance, after what they did.”

Y’know what? None of us do.

"What you have received freely, freely give."

I contend that the largest obstacle to the manifestation of this command by Christians in the world today is that too many of us fall into at least one of two categories:

• we have not fully received the gift of forgiveness which we have been offered
• we don’t truly believe ourselves undeserving of the grace we have received

That is, we insist on evaluating ourselves in terms of others, as respectively worse or better. We would never think to judge others, of course, because we’ve been so clearly warned against it. Yet in evaluating ourselves in such terms we unconsciously judge, in spite of the warnings.

Christianity is about a different thing entirely. By the action of the Holy Spirit:

• I see that I desperately need what Christ has done for me, could never deserve it and, in fact, have no hope without it (end of evaluation of self/others)
• I embrace the gift of Christ, both of his sacrifice on my behalf in atonement for my sins and of his presence in my life (beginning of my transformation in Christ)
• I recognize that every neighbor desperately needs what Christ has done and the new life I am experiencing in him, realizing that no one else deserves it any less than I do (beginning of personal evangelization mission, sharing mercy and love with others)

But without the first step, often referred to as the first spiritual truth, no matter how much we may think we've taken the second one, we can never overcome our tendency to judge others, whether we're conscious of it or not.

Strength vs. weakness

Some people see religion as a crutch, something the weak need to help them deal with the difficulties life brings.

This may be true of many religions, but there are two ways (aside from its verity) in which Christianity differs from these.

First of all, Christianity readily acknowledges that it is a religion for the weak. St. Paul says "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.' Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ's power may rest on me. That is why, for Christ's sake, I delight in weaknesses, in insults, in hardships, in persecutions, in difficulties. For when I am weak, then I am strong." (2 Cor 12, 8-10) If you're strong enough to be able to stand between God and Satan in your own strength, then you don't need a Savior; you're already better than the rest of us, and Christianity isn't the religion for you.

And when asked why he ate with tax collectors and prostitutes, Jesus replied, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners." (Mk 2, 17)

But Christianity is not a crutch for those who just need a little help getting to heaven. It is a gurney to carry in those who have no hope of getting there themselves.

I am so weak. Lord, may I live by your strength.