Life lessons

I will use a quote by Mairead Maguire, the former Nobel prize winner to open. 'We frail humans are at one time capable of the greatest good and, at the same time, capable of the greatest evil. Change will only come about when each of us takes up the daily struggle ourselves to be more forgiving, compassionate, loving, and above all, joyful in the knowledge that by some miracle of grace, we can change as those around us can change too.'

Some weeks ago I started taking swimming lessons with a buddy of mine and that is the inspiration behind this post. What I need you to not misunderstand is that I can 'swim', unfortunately not very well! I have no enduring technique and cannot tread water, which unless I were always asked to swim short distances of 15 metres or less, in addition to all swimming waters being no deeper than 1.7 metres, improving and learning would not be necessary.

What I found funny about the lessons is the link between the practical component and the theory behind it. If you sat me down and asked me how one swims, and not only that but how one swims well and effectively, I would most certainly be able to give you a detailed and accurate account. In fact I am confident that I could give details that would include elements of the physics behind the process and the biology that makes it possible! The practical component is where I fall short and discrepancies become self evident. If asked to put the aforementioned theoretical knowledge to practise, I would be found wanting. Whilst I have the theory 'down pat', I cant seem to transfer this soft knowledge into the equivalent and useful physical output that is swimming well!

This got me thinking, as some random things often do, about many aspects of life and generally being. (In the next section 'I' was initially 'We', but that was changed to avoid blindly casting the blanket of generalization and to avoid transferring what could potentially be my own musings onto other people, though I am sure we are all in the same boat). I have, and to a limited extent know the theory behind having an admirable life, being a charitable man, being a blameless son, being an irreproachable husband, being an exemplary Christian to name a few examples; however daily when it comes to the practice of it all I fall short. Much like my dilemma with swimming, where I know what I should be doing and indeed what I often want to be doing, I find that I am just not doing it, and when I try I don't get it quite right. The reasons for this and for my poor swimming I suppose can be traced; as far back as the garden of Eden perhaps or when I was still only a little boy, when I unwittingly dove into the big boy pool, banged my head, inhaled water in shock and never wanted to enter a pool again, respectively off course!

Whilst the reasons, as many as they are, may be fully valid and understandable, we and indeed I must not let them be a source of justification for our shortcomings. Justifying will make them acceptable, and once this becomes the welcomed status quo, much will be lost including perhaps an understanding and appreciation of grace - not that it could ever be fully understood anyway.

I will close as I opened, using the words of men before me, and those more experienced in life than I am. Harry Ironside a Canadian pastor (in the USA) said, 'Grace is the opposite of merit. Grace is not only undeserved favour, but it is favour shown to the one who has deserved the very opposite.'

Sinclair Ferguson a Scottish minister said more potently that, 'The spiritual life is lived between two polarities: our sin and God's grace. The discovery of the former brings us to seek the latter; the work of the latter illuminates the depths of the former and causes us to seek yet more grace. The heart-conviction of sin is the way that grace prepares the heart for more grace.'