mgpcpastor's blog

I wrote this piece for our local paper, The Border Watch, where it was published yesterday.
It uses some material from this post of mine from a few weeks ago.

My long-suffering children have endured paternal amnesia for years. You know who you want to call, but the wrong name comes to mind and is on your lips before you know it. Nothing erodes the moral authority of a reprimand more than incorrectly identifying the offender. Nothing dilutes the power of a word of praise more than offering it to the wrong name.
I recently heard a song in which the singer remembered his childhood, and his father’s unfortunate habit of getting the names of his sons mixed up. This led to a resolve that when grown up and a parent himself he’d always be able to do something as basic as correctly call each of his children by the right name. Except, that now, as a father, he constantly gets it wrong. And he understands his father a little better.
Earlier in life I was keenly aware of my father’s failings. I used to think that simply being aware of someone else’s shortcomings was the key to avoiding those pitfalls in adult life.
I was wrong.
Having a keenly developed insight into human failing can only take you so far. It won’t automatically mean that you’ll have healthy relationships. Instead it’ll keep you distanced and disappointed. People have trouble growing close when they feel they never measure up.
Over time though, I’d like to think I’m developing an insight into human frailty. Mine and others. A knowledge of your own frailty fuels compassion and patience with people in theirs. Which is necessary to nurture relationships.
I mightn’t make exactly the same mistakes my father made. But I do make my own. I have fewer excuses for my failings that he did for his. So, these days I remember my father more in terms of his frailties than his failings.
Hopefully that means I can grow in compassion, patience, understanding and service. And these are the qualities where love and relationships flourish.
Some people feel a distance from God because they feel they can’t ever measure up to His standards. Because of that they give up on God and give up on any sense that they can ever be helped.
The Bible tells us that God reaches out to us past our failings. He sent Jesus to come and be what we couldn’t be, in order that we can know forgiveness, acceptance and love. We don’t have to strive to be good enough for God to take us as his own. Instead, we are called upon to acknowledge our inability and receive his love.
Knowing our own frailties and weaknesses can be a key to enabling relationships on earth to flourish. We can also know that our failings don’t cut us off from God, but, instead of despairing, we can have hope in God’s love that reaches over our weakness, and through Jesus, draws us to himself.