When the Postman Rings Twice
In the 1800s Charles Hodge went on a two year trip to Germany, the birthplace of the Protestant Reformation. He was appalled at how Martin Luther's home land was becoming so spiritually bankrupt.
Returning to Princeton he told his students, "Keep your hearts with all diligence, for out of them are the issues of life."
Indeed, hearts are fragile and seem especially susceptible to damage from religion that seeks to legislate morality with the heavy hand of guilt. Where religion demands, grace gives. While religion berates, grace uplifts. And as religion burdens it is grace that frees.
No one really wants to be covered in sin and disgrace, but few seem to know the answer to their dilemma. Seemingly trapped by habitual patterns of the mind, they find themselves caught in the loop of performance anxiety and the assurance that somehow they have fallen short.
The New Testament states,
"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6).
The rest is simply shadows that will pass away. It is not about rules and regulations; it is about what James called the Royal Law, loving God and loving other people, letting go of resentments and learning from one's mistakes and growing in the interim.
In the 1930's James M. Cain wrote the crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Later the book would be made into a movie.
Yet the story is not about a mailman at all, but is rather an erotic tale of sex, betrayal and violence. Asked about the peculiar title Cain explained that his book was rejected by publishers over and over again. When the postman would bring his mail each day that inevitably contained another rejection letter, he would ring the doorbell twice.
Cain was able to do what many people are unable to find the strength to do, find an empowering meaning in the difficult lesson life had given him and realize that he was not a failure.
He recognized that his identity did not come from other people's opinions and that his own self worth did not rely on their judgments. And no matter what obstacles stood in his way, he refused to give up; he had learned to remove the word quit from his vocabulary.
Indeed, as Owen Fitzpatrick states, "Failure only exists when you place a time limit on something."
When we realize that growth and change are a process we can rest in the knowledge that the distance between where we are and where we somehow "should" be in our spiritual journey will take care of itself.
It is in trying to rush things and in allowing other people to tell us where they think we ought to be that leads to spiritual burnout and drowns out the still, quiet voice of God that lets us know his grace is enough.
Returning to Princeton he told his students, "Keep your hearts with all diligence, for out of them are the issues of life."
Indeed, hearts are fragile and seem especially susceptible to damage from religion that seeks to legislate morality with the heavy hand of guilt. Where religion demands, grace gives. While religion berates, grace uplifts. And as religion burdens it is grace that frees.
No one really wants to be covered in sin and disgrace, but few seem to know the answer to their dilemma. Seemingly trapped by habitual patterns of the mind, they find themselves caught in the loop of performance anxiety and the assurance that somehow they have fallen short.
The New Testament states,
"The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love" (Galatians 5:6).
The rest is simply shadows that will pass away. It is not about rules and regulations; it is about what James called the Royal Law, loving God and loving other people, letting go of resentments and learning from one's mistakes and growing in the interim.
In the 1930's James M. Cain wrote the crime novel The Postman Always Rings Twice. Later the book would be made into a movie.
Yet the story is not about a mailman at all, but is rather an erotic tale of sex, betrayal and violence. Asked about the peculiar title Cain explained that his book was rejected by publishers over and over again. When the postman would bring his mail each day that inevitably contained another rejection letter, he would ring the doorbell twice.
Cain was able to do what many people are unable to find the strength to do, find an empowering meaning in the difficult lesson life had given him and realize that he was not a failure.
He recognized that his identity did not come from other people's opinions and that his own self worth did not rely on their judgments. And no matter what obstacles stood in his way, he refused to give up; he had learned to remove the word quit from his vocabulary.
Indeed, as Owen Fitzpatrick states, "Failure only exists when you place a time limit on something."
When we realize that growth and change are a process we can rest in the knowledge that the distance between where we are and where we somehow "should" be in our spiritual journey will take care of itself.
It is in trying to rush things and in allowing other people to tell us where they think we ought to be that leads to spiritual burnout and drowns out the still, quiet voice of God that lets us know his grace is enough.
Source...