How many times do I wound God through my addiction to sin, and still He looks at me with love and forgiveness, beckoning me home…
The other day I failed – AGAIN. I did not just fail in a small way, I failed in spectacular fashion, miserably and dramatically in exactly the same way that I have failed a million times in my life before.
There I was – living my life – knowing full-well that I was in the process of failing, and become completely unwilling or unable to stop myself making everything worse.
There I was in the middle of losing my marbles – so to speak – and knowing in the very depths of my heart (even in the moment of my complete and utter failure) that I really should have been able to hold my temper and maintain my dignity for longer than this…
And yet – there I was completely failing in exactly the way that I had promised my God and myself that I would never do again. In many ways I was failing like an addict unable to refrain from the substance that was causing me all the aggravation. And just like an addict, I hated my weakness, and felt compelled to repeat it over and over again…
And just as a drug causes physical and emotional un-healthiness, so too did my sin cause me to become unhealthy spiritually…
And I have been reflecting on that weakness today as I have been reflecting on Saint Simon Peter’s words to Christ… “Simon Peter said to Jesus, ‘Lord, where are you going?’ Jesus answered, ‘Where I am going you cannot follow Me now; but you shall follow afterward.’ Peter said to Him, ‘Lord, why cannot I follow You now? I will lay down my life for You.’ Jesus answered, ‘Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, the cock will not crow, till you have denied Me three times.’” (John 13:21-33, 36-38).
You see, God has seen my sort of behaviour before – and He has loved those weak and sinful souls anyway. He saw it in Simon Peter, who professed his love for Christ and then trembled before a servant and denied Christ three times. He saw it in Judas, for whom it would be better is he was never born (so that he would not suffer the pains of eternal damnation). And He sees it in me – time and time again, every time I succumb the to addiction of sin…
And just as He looked at Simon Peter in the moment of that betrayal, and just as Simon Peter knew in the moment of his weakness how far he had fallen from his Beloved, so too do I. And just as Simon Peter “wept bitterly” for his sin, so too do I. And I have been thinking about that today. For in the past, my tears have been the tears of frustration for my own weakness, but it occurs to me today to cry for my Beloved…
For how many times do I wound Him through my addiction to sin, and still He looks at me with love and forgiveness, beckoning me home…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.