Mercy
How awesome is my Lord and God who forgives my sins with infinite patience – the ALL PREDICTABLE one…
My eldest son is learning to drive and I am teaching him – may God have mercy on us both!
It is an interesting thing to teach a child to drive. We have to place our trust in the other person that they will not do anything too stupid and kill or injure us or someone else at all. It can be quite a frightening thing to teach a learner driver to drive. This is not because they are bad drivers, but rather because their inexperience means that they can be unpredictable on the road. Roads with drivers who behave in a predictable fashion are safe roads. This is one of the reasons why people who drive under the influence of drugs or alcohol are so dangerous to have on the roads, because their intoxication means that they are unable to make the same rational decisions when they drive and can endanger others by behaving unpredictably. This is also why in some countries overseas where the road rules are not adequately enforced, there is so much danger in being on the road because people are unable to understand or pre-empt the decisions and direction of the other drivers on the road.
One of the other reasons that I am often worried while teaching my son to drive is the behaviour of other drivers on the road. Some people are very patient and understanding. They make room for him and wait for him to pass. Other people are very impatient with him. They do dangerous things to get around him. They open their windows and hurl abuse, and they try to overtake in dangerous ways.
I have been thinking about both of these approaches today as I have been thinking of Christ.
“Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, ‘Peace be with you.’ When he had said this, he showed them his hands and his side. Then the disciples were glad when they saw the Lord. Jesus said to them again, ‘Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, even so I send you.’ And when he had said this, he breathed on them, and said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit. If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained.’ Now Thomas, one of the twelve, called the Twin, was not with them when Jesus came. So the other disciples told him, ‘We have seen the Lord.’ But he said to them, ‘Unless I see in his hands the print of the nails, and place my finger in the mark of the nails, and place my hand in his side, I will not believe.’” (John 20:19-31).
You see, the drivers who wait and those who overtake have the same frustration – they are better drivers than my son. The difference is that some of those better drivers are patient and others are not patient.
God is like the patent drivers. He is better than us in every way. And yet, He always waits for us – ready to forgive every stupid and sinful thing we do… When G. K. Chesterton was asked why he converted to Catholicism, he answered, “To get rid of my sins.”And there is a patience and a mercy in that which I may well spend the rest of my lifetime trying to understand and appreciate.
How awesome is my Lord and God who forgives my sins with infinite patience – the ALL PREDICTABLE one…
For with prayer, I stand on Holy Ground where everything is clear. Here. At the Foot of the Cross.
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