Rereading Life's Lessons in the form of Confession

Rereading Life’s Lessons

Theology in the Trenches

by Kathleen Kjolhaug

 

Testing season is upon us.  All year long the students within our school work hard.  They work on many things but are tested on only a few.  One area in which they are tested is reading.  In order to do well on these tests, the students learn strategies.  One of the strategies that the students learn is to reread a passage or a question several times before they choose their answer.  Once they reread, it helps them comprehend the passage better as well as understand exactly what is being asked in the question.  Rereads help clarify.

That got me to thinking about life and the possibility of utilizing the rereading strategy, if you will, so that it might bring clarity to any given circumstance or happenstance.  Another way to put it might be the need to relearn a lesson or two that I thought I’d already learned.  As I find that certain situations tend to repeat themselves in my life, I’ve wondered about the possibility of utilizing the reread before acting upon them.

As I began thinking, I decided to list a few things that I’ve had to reread, so to speak, and still manage to get it wrong most days.  Confession is good for the soul they say, so here goes.

Matthew 9: 12-13 sums it up:  “Healthy people don’t need a doctor – sick people do.”  Then Jesus added, “Now go and learn the meaning of this Scripture: ‘I want you to show mercy, not offer sacrifices.’  For I have come to call not those who think they are righteous, but those who know they are sinners.”

Perhaps it’s the “showing mercy” part that’s calling me to reread.  Or, maybe it’s remembering that He died for sinners.  Or possibly it’s the not needing to offer sacrifices that gets me all jumbled up time and again.  Just when my heart is feeling peaceful about living each area authentically, a challenge arises and I find myself back at square one.  Knowing how dependent I am on Him, I confess my shortcomings.

When I show little mercy, anger arises, words pour forth unfiltered, and my little finger points in the air all haughty like I’ve always had it all together.  And as I reread the situation, it comes…slowly but surely.  It comes that indeed I am who I am only because He is who He is. 

That He died for sinners is easy to remember and easy to forget.  For it was “while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).  When I forget, I reread.  Just when I know I know, pride leaks from a seam or two, and I must reread once more.  Once sight is lost in this area, it can be blinding.  Removing blinders so others can see Jesus would be a vision worth of catching. 

So many areas of His life I must reread because He alone is the Holy One, He alone is the Lord, He alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, together with the Holy Spirit, to the glory of the God the Father.   Amen.