The Learning Curve

Today I am writing about a subject that I have failed at miserably in the last thirty years of my life.  Why do I want to write about this?  I don’t want to, but God has been working on me from many directions the last few weeks, and finally I have had the ears to hear.  Many of my recent conversations have developed a need for others to hear this message not for mysake, but to learn that God will meet you where you are, and if we get out of the way, he will open the necessary doors to meet his will.  I have no idea of I will ever write another post, so this one says a lot.

I was confronted recently with a thirty year history of the sins of my youth, adulthood, and questioning my Christianity.  I can tell you the list was long.  Some of these were right on the spot in describing my actions and a few had some gross misunderstanding or misrepresentation, but nevertheless were representing the thoughts and feelings that this person has had about me for sometime.  It was ironic that I was in this type of position more than once in the last few weeks, after I started this blog.  I won’t name the person, but it is someone who I used to be extremely close to, someone that I enjoyed much of my life with when I was growing up.  Someone I miss a great deal today, all to my own fault.  I obviously hurt him and several others by taking a path a way from them.   I have not really been accountable to any one as it relates to my life.  I tried to control everything.

When I look back at these events in my life, I realize that I have blamed everyone and everything else but me for the results that I have been living and even forced on others who had no choice.  I lived as though I was the victim of the circumstances and actions of others.  This creates painful scenarios for those you love, and those you should love.  It also creates some very stressful, embarrassing, humiliating perceptions.  All of this usually is a result of sin of arrogance, of greed, and of selfishness.  It also distorts your own reality, your own truth, and your perceptions of life today and the actions you take tomorrow.  It is not possible to live in a world of reality when you do not take accountability and responsibility for your own actions, or inactions.  It is not a real life without humility, or the ability of feeling true emotions.  I blocked them all for years, until now.  Transparency is not something that I have aspired to in the past, and I find it difficult but necessary now.

For some readers of this blog, and there are only a few that I am aware of, they have commented on my religiousness and a perception was created that I have had it all together in life.  I can fully confess that until a few days ago, I did not have any understanding of the power of God, and the true meaning of repentance.  I spent most of my life going to church, reading my Bible sporadically, attending a Christian college, and being a “good” person.  But when I looked at my life from different eyes, I realized that I broke most of the Ten Commandments in my short life to this point.   I have come to be accountable that I hurt friends, distant family members, and my own immediate family including my wife, my three sons, and nearly everyone that I have been close to by not being the Godly father, husband and friend that I was called to be.

I have done almost every bad thing that we put others down for, but want to hold ourselves above.  That is a hypocracy that I have lived.  Although I may not have been called out for my sins at the time, I will be if I do not set the record straight with God and those who I sinned against, or with at the time.

So why would I consider writing this post today?  One reason is that I want to make a peace offering to those that I have hurt that may just read this blog. I will also make attempts to take responsibility for this personally, but either way, I ask for your forgiveness for the pain I have caused.  I certainly want you to know that I have forgiven everyone who I claimed hurt me and that I harbored anger or even hatred towards, whether you needed to be or not.

Another reason is that I have accepted a new life with God that I have not experienced before, and I want to clear the way for me to live as he has called me to do for my family’s sake, and so a new legacy can be lived in my sons and their families of the future.  I want to get my family in a church that we call home.  We have not been in one for some time.  Without a church family, my sons have little chance of staying focused on God’s will for their lives. 

I have many things to address, as may you.  This is the beginning of a new life, but the end of a wrong life.   I have no idea what the future holds for me, or my family, I have no promise of tomorrow,  but I do have the gift of today. 

As you may take a look at your own life, I pray that you find the peace that God offers through his salvation of believing in his death, burial, resurrection and forgiveneess of our sins.  I pray that we all strive to live in his glory and accept his grace and mercy.  I pray that you find the God that I have just found. 

We will all eventually be accountable whether we want to be or not.  I want to change the tables in my family’s favor now.  I hope you do as well. My accountability is now and my actions to create it are today.

May you receive the love you deserve, the coverings of God’s mercy and the protection of his word.