majestic is his forgiveness. . .
my dear friend, CS Lewis said, "we need to be reminded more than we need to be instructed".
If his words are true (and most of them are) we suffer from an awkward case of seeking instruction and avoiding remembrance. We seem to have a genuine disdain for tradition, which is fine if you know the reality that sits behind the tradition, literally extracting the truth from tradition. Some people do this fine, and in doing so find an even deeper more powerful meaning in the text, or in the practice of faith. Most of us are not that person, we "give up" on the faith at the exact moment when it matters to have faith, not when we are impressionable youth who think we can change the world but when we are on the cusp of manhood finding that God wasn't trying to change the world through us instead he was attempting to change us, and not to reconcile us to the world or better explain him to the earth but to reconcile us (insert your name here) to himself. He wants our hearts, not our brilliance (which you have no lacking of, bruce said so himself) or our wit and humor, he doesn't even want our feeble attempts to appease him (really shameful attempts actually). He wants us, not a tithe or a law or a commitment, he wants our hearts and it's no secret that he is relentless.
It's actually kinda funny that we so effortlessly and consistently say things like, "i wanna give you my heart" or "my heart is yours God", because the fact is we don't even hold that much sway over our ever wandering hearts to begin with. The real miracle and "good news" isn't that we can feebly offer broken hearts to God our Father and he accepts them, its the reverse; God offers us his mighty, fully healing, fully self-sustained heart to us to be trodded, spat, and relied upon. That is the beauty of God, not that I am cleasned but that he cleanses me. it's the heart of the gospel that God meets me, even pursues me, wherever i roam without glancing back at what is lost or given or sacrficed in the process.
