Yesterday, I heard from someone who is offering an opportunity for me. It is a good break. If anything comes out of this, there will an opportunity for me to grow in the academic path of my ministry. A few years back I would have jumped immediately at this chance. But I’m no longer the same guy. I have been become more cautious – more hesitant. Not just because of the events that have happened before (yet of course it has some bearing, but not entirely), but could it also be that I may have lost the taste for new things, adventures? Then I shall no longer be a dawn treader, but rather a dawn sleeper. No, I don’t think I have come to that point yet. Not entirely. There are just so many things to consider...
I just saw The English Patient -very passionate, intense. Count Almasy wrote “Betrayals in war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace...for the heart is an organ of fire.” Mine wasn’t so much a betrayal than disloyalty, but the pain is just as much, just as searing, just as traumatic. I can’t say I was totally unaware that it can happen, but when the time came, it still caught me by surprise. The worst part is not the injury, but what the injury has done to you. The intrusion of it, the rude awakening, and you are left shaken, unsure if you could ever trust again, uncertain if the uncalled for attack shall leave you forever suspicious of friendships. Now, that was nothing compared to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, but it was precisely that betrayal that Jesus came to die for. He embraced it. He accepted it, not because He wanted it, nor enjoyed it, but because this was how He is, this was part of His great act of sacrifice. He is not threatened by our ugliness, by our betrayals, by our treachery. He offers us a way toward redemption, up on that hill, so that we who have been betrayed, we who have betrayed and had been treacherous may find a fresh start, a new beginning, a renewed faith.
I just saw The English Patient -very passionate, intense. Count Almasy wrote “Betrayals in war are childlike compared with our betrayals during peace...for the heart is an organ of fire.” Mine wasn’t so much a betrayal than disloyalty, but the pain is just as much, just as searing, just as traumatic. I can’t say I was totally unaware that it can happen, but when the time came, it still caught me by surprise. The worst part is not the injury, but what the injury has done to you. The intrusion of it, the rude awakening, and you are left shaken, unsure if you could ever trust again, uncertain if the uncalled for attack shall leave you forever suspicious of friendships. Now, that was nothing compared to Judas’ betrayal of Jesus, but it was precisely that betrayal that Jesus came to die for. He embraced it. He accepted it, not because He wanted it, nor enjoyed it, but because this was how He is, this was part of His great act of sacrifice. He is not threatened by our ugliness, by our betrayals, by our treachery. He offers us a way toward redemption, up on that hill, so that we who have been betrayed, we who have betrayed and had been treacherous may find a fresh start, a new beginning, a renewed faith.
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