There will be more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who have no need of repentance. -- Luke 15:7
The first time ever I heard that, my first thought was, "There's going to be some heavy-duty partying in heaven when I get there." But that was a long time ago...in my youth, so to speak. Before ever I repented now that I think on it!
And don't you just hate the very word "repent?" Or is that just me? My feeling is that it's almost enough to make me hope I never get to that point. So sanctimonious...holier than thou. Too high in the instep by half, as my unsainted grandmother would say.
I don't know why but the idea occurs to me that we must needs come to love our self before we can give our self permission to admit, without fear of condemnation, to disliking that which we shouldn't dislike. (Is that convoluted enough?) Well, think on it...be it words, people, places, babies...and there it is. Babies. Disliking babies and saying so may explain my entire point. You can get some really evil-eyed stares, not to mention a particularly spiteful "well, bless your heart" or two if you openly admit that babies just do not do it for you, and I speak from experience here. But then I've probably given the spiteful evil eye to people who openly dislike dogs.
Hmmm...I started this thinking to write about the way we beat ourselves up over our mistakes, over past rues, regrets and remorses. The futility of it, specifically. It's entirely ego driven which, even as we admit that, we get a certain approving charge out of being so insightful.
Well, enough said. All we need do is read old Luke at 15:7. If we can't take comfort in being the one sinner, at least we can feel good that we're not of the 99 self-righteous.
Thank you.
No comments:
Post a Comment