Release

I have been thinking about this week's message at my usual thinking time - 6:00 am during my daily rendezvous with the elliptical.  Yesterday I skipped my regular meeting with that instrument of torture because of a huge knot in my left hamstring.  I made all kinds of excuses for skipping out on that part of my routine, but way deep down inside was that little voice that says, "Loser.  You're weak.  If you weren't you would have pushed through the pain.  You will never succeed."  That voice has been with me for as long as I can remember, and I wager that if we were all completely honest, each one of us has that voice with us.  And it doesn't just criticize me for what I am doing now.  When I least expect it, that voice reminds me of things in my past. I'm even getting a little nervous just writing this, wondering what is going to spring up to bite me today.

Here is another way to look at it.  I was having a conversation with a brilliant friend who said those memories and experiences - all the things we were encouraged to remember in last week's sermon - are like beach balls in a swimming pool.  They are always there, they are always with you.  They can get in your way, but you can move them around, "shepherd" them.  They can fluster and frustrate you, but if you try to get rid of them by pushing them under the water they will fly up and become a bigger problem.

I don't know about you, but I think I allow that voice to get to me and hang on to the problems of the past out of fear.  Fear of failure, fear of the future, fear of judgement and condemnation, fear the unknown.  I say things to myself that I would never, in a hundred, million, gazillion years say to a friend.  I know that to some extent that keeps me locked in the past. If we aren't able to release the past and the fear, then they will jump up and block our path, prevent us from seeing the signs, prevent us from being able to move forward, in the direction we are being led.

And then in the midst of trying to corral my beach balls and bring some semblance of coherency to my thoughts I stumbled on a passage from a book that I have been trying to read for five weeks.  (I wonder why it took until yesterday for me to make any progress?)  Paulo Coelho, in Aleph, says it far better than I ever could:

"...I realized that forgiveness works only if you accept it... There is a moment in the Bible, during the Last Supper, when Jesus predicts that one of his disciples will deny him and one will betray him.  He considers both crimes to be equally grave.  Judas betrays him, and, eaten away by guilt, hangs himself.  Peter denies him not just once but three times. He had time to think about what he was doing, but he persisted in his error.  However, instead of punishing himself for this, he makes a strength of his weakness and becomes the first great preacher of the message taught to him by the man whom he had denied in his hours of need.

The message of love was greater than the sin.  Judas failed to understand this, but Peter used it as a working tool." 

Peter released his fear, doubt, and guilt.  He accepted Christ's forgiveness and love.  But he didn't forget.