PRACTICING CHRISTIAN

No one of us gets it right all the time. We make mistakes even when we think we have covered all the angles and have what we are about to do down pat. It’s human nature. And no one of us is as pure as the driven snow, as they say. We are all sinners to one degree or another. Perhaps we can, and probably should, take a bit of satisfaction in knowing that our sins are not all that bad; but they are sins nevertheless.

What all this means is that we are still in the learning process not only about what it means to be a Christian but also what it means to be a human being. Every day scientists are learning more and more about how our physical body works. They are learning how to repair joints that used to take weeks now take place as same-day surgery. My cataract surgeries were same-day. When I was ordained 50+ years ago, it was a two-week procedure demanding the patient stay rigid in bed with sandbags to hold the head in place. The list is endless.

In the same way we are constantly learning how our spiritual body works, that is, if we make the effort to pause and think how far we have come in that area as we have grown up physically. What we once thought was no big deal, we now know that it is. For instance: bullying, teasing, name-calling. As kids we did it to others and they did it to us. We hurt them and they hurt us and we sort of thought it was okay. But it wasn’t and isn’t and never will be.

Physical pain hurts but not as much as spiritual pain. Stones may break my bones but the bones will heal. Spoken words last a lifetime and the pain never really goes away. Fortunately, or unfortunately, that is how we learn. It is not that we have to practice hurting someone or being hurt in order to learn. It is that so often that is the only way we learn, namely, the hard way.

The grace in all this is that we do learn and that we continually do so. We grow in an understanding of what it means to be human and what it means to be a Christian. We will never get it right all the time. We will continue to make mistakes and we will continue to hurt ourselves and others in word and in deed, but less so. That doesn’t make our failures okay. They are still failures but at least we have learned from them.

But, then, that’s how we learn, isn’t it? Practice is supposed to make perfect and it does, but not all of the time. We can and should rejoice when we get it right and be thankful. Then, too, we should pause and reflect what went wrong when we did not, when we said or did something we knew we should not but did it anyway. We and the world we live in would be a wonderful place if we got it right the second time and from then on.

But in the meantime, we have to keep practicing, keep living and learning what it means to be fully alive physically and spiritually.