From
Psalm 15:1-3
H,
I guess
it is instructive that a large part of getting it right with the will of God is
not hurting other people. Before we seek to help them we must be sure we are
not in the habit, already, of hindering them. A large part of what we are
taught about all this is the need to get involved as quickly and thoughtlessly
as possible in the lives of others. No. This could only work if we had the eyes
to see right into them and the heft to diagnose rightly what the maladies of
their souls really are. Honestly, we are yet to fully understand our own
issues. It is the log and speck thing all over again.
Now,
I am not saying that we should be detached from the human experience or be so
careful not to make the wrong sort of gesture that we become stuck in inertia. What
I really mean is that we learn to do the simple things well. The small acts of
love and the kindness of love that always go further than our self righteous attempts
to summarize lives into sound bites and epigrams. Like all things, we need the
humility of not letting our bloated image of self get in the way.
Of course,
the main thing about grace is the constant failure it stands against. If we set
out to list our flaws and failings in this matter, it will know no end. This is
the part that makes us give up. We are arrogant enough to think that if we know
something then we should immediately be good at it or we are failures. We have
to be prepared to fail a little more. This light emerging from our dark is who
we will forever be. We have to give it time to become a full shine.