Scripture: 1 Timothy 1:12-17

Have you ever had any serious reflection about how loving parents can take in stride verbal abuse and other teenage acting out from their children? Have you ever wondered how, on the morning after you spouted out harshly and hatefully at your mother when she called your hand on an obvious violation of acceptable behavior, she could greet you with a smile and a kiss and an aggravatingly sincere, “I love you”? Haven’t you wondered how, on the evening after you blessed out your father for telling you can’t keep on doing something, he could show up on the tail end of a hard day at the office with tickets for the two of you to attend the football game you were dying to see? Or, after a whole season of adolescent rebellion and all kinds of reasons not to trust anymore, how can parents send a child to college to face a tough world as an adult with nothing but trust and goodwill? A mystery.

Many of us, I’m sure, have had on occasion some sense of distance between ourselves and God and some sense that at times in our lives that we have knowingly and continually violated God’s will and openly rebelled in our own way against Him. Those memories cause us both sadness at how unnecessary and inappropriate such a way of life was as well as amazement that God kept on loving us and caring for us anyway. It’s kind of staggering, isn’t it?

One of the great fathers of the church, Saint Augustine, reflected on his life before relationship with God in his great devotional classic, Confessions. He described eloquently this dimension of God about which we’re speaking. You see, before his dramatic conversion, Augustine had been openly a scoundrel with quite an appetite for sins of the flesh. In retrospect, he became convinced that even in his most clear-cut periods of self-alienation from God, in an absolutely pre-Christian condition, God was bringing him into certain situations which finally had a bearing on his opening himself to relationship with God. That’s quite some faith, isn’t it? In prayer Saint Augustine reflected:

Is there any evil that is not found in my acts, or if not in my acts, in my words, or if not in my words, in my will? But you, O Lord, are good and merciful, and your right hand has had regard for the depth of my death, and from the very bottom of my heart it has emptied out an abyss of corruption.… I have not forgotten, nor will I keep silent concerning the sharpness of your scourge and the wonderful speed of your mercy.

I uttered sighs, and you gave ear to me. I wavered back and forth, and you guided me. I wandered upon the broad way of the world, but you did not forsake me. ¹

“You did not forsake me.” That could be a part of our prayers to God as well. No matter how out of line we were or how far away from God, God did not forsake us. This is also the sentiment of the apostle Paul.

To Be Continued

¹ John K. Ryan, translator, The Confessions of St. Augustine.
Unless otherwise noted, Scripture taken from the New King James Version®, NKJV © 1982 by Thomas Nelson.
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