Thursday, September 11, 2003
Thursday, September 11, 2003
Jesus said, "I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance."
If you keep bumping your head coming down the stairs, maybe it is time you stop for a moment
and think if there is another way it might be done. Sometimes our so-called weaknesses are
simply warning signs to us that we are on the wrong road.
Elie Wiesel once noted that according to Jewish tradition, creation did not end with man. It began
with him. When He created man, God gave him a secret--and that secret was not how to begin,
but how to BEGIN AGAIN. In other words, "it is not given to man to begin; that privilege is God's
alone. But it is given to man to begin again...." Some of us need to begin again.
That is what repentance is all about.
(Luke 5.32
NRSV)
One of the most revealing lines in literature appears in the opening paragraph of A. A. Milne's
WINNIE-THE-POOH: "Here is Edward Bear coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on
the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming
downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way...if only he could stop
bumping for a moment and think of it!"
Dear God, forgive me for following my own desires that have move me away from you. Draw me
close to your love. Amen.
