Smeagol is Free!
A hermitudinal view of...stuff...


2.12.2005  

Excused Tardiness

Patrick Orayi Whyte. The man is one that cannot be missed or mistaken. He's like...7 feet tall...got a distinctive voice (almost James Earl Jonesish, but not really...it's probably the accent...he's Nigerian)...and he knows everybody. The worst thing about Patrick is that he sucks up your time and makes you late. The best thing? If He's talking about the Lord, then the tardiness he bestows upon you is worth it.

Well, almost.

Last night, we got together to catch up, since we hadn't sat down to chat in a few months. I told him the latest (and not so latest), and he told me what the Lord's been teaching him. And wow, is he learning! Before I go into Patrick's lesson, though, I'm going to put in my five cents on the word that I've had humming through my system for the past week: holiness. God's holiness, mind you, not mine, for the term, "my holiness" seems more like an oxymoron as of late than anything else. The Lord calls us to holiness, for He Himself is undeniably and unexplainably holy. Yet I fail to heed that calling time and time again. Thus, what Patrick shared struck a nerve. He spoke about being vulnerable before the Lord, about coming to a point where faith means us crying out, "God, if You do not help me, if You do not intercede, I simply cannot go on, for only You can do this!" He spoke about dealing with sin at the point where it first takes root, for the sinful things which are manifest in our lives initially take shape in our hearts, and we cannot blame them on the external influences that shape the ebb and flow of our lives. We are called to be salt to a tasteless world, light to a world in the darkness. Am I doing that? Am I different? Am I holy, set apart, holy as He is holy?

The conversation caught something within me that I had been letting fall for a long, long time. In hearing Patrick's familiar voice extol the weakness of man and the tender strength of God, I felt beckoned once more to heed the call of grace that the cross sends out. It was a gentle reminder of something that Leeman once chided me with: Right now I am, in the sight of God, as righteous as I will ever be; yet, I am to still work out my salvation with fear and trembling, for Christ is still being formed within me. *Sigh*...it's the "saved, but not yet saved" aspect of our salvation. Although that righteousness is a comfort, it is also freedom that is given to us by the Lord that we might not stumble still more, for it is in Christ's righteousness that we come forth to confess our sin and weakness and infinite need, full of hope and faith that the Lord is ineed faithful to those whom He has called.

posted by Bolo | 9:49 AM
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