My father was a Navy veteran, but he was also an alcoholic and a less
than commendable dad. He passed away years ago and I have yet to visit his
grave site, even though I occasionally pass through the community where he is buried.
I have to admit that for me, his actions in life over shadow his military
contribution. I realize that in a sense I’m setting a double standard. It would
be wrong for me to begrudge my Dad being honored for service when I know that Christ’s
sacrifice on the cross is the only reason that God overlooks the actions in my
life.
1 comment:
Gail;
-----You have struck upon the precise importance of our forgiveness towards one another in order to receive God’s forgiveness towards ourselves. We were bought with a price, therefore we are not our own. In other words, we have become His spiritual property while we wait for the redemption of our bodies. As His spiritual property we become subject to His right of molding, and the molding of us He is making is back into the image of God in which He had made man before man fell. That image involved the fullness of love, and at that time, man’s love involved no forgiveness, because from his perspective of having no knowledge of evil there was nothing to forgive. So to speak from the purview of your metaphor, there was nothing overshadowing man’s military contribution, nor was there a gravesite. But once the fall occurred, the overshadowing began, and since then every human overshadows his own military contribution by his own sin until the day he physically dies. As such, every living human is his own gravesite until the Lord visits that gravesite in His glorious grace and raises the man’s spirit to life regardless of the fact that his body will remain dead until redeemed as well.
-----Since we were raised for a purpose not our own, we must accept being raised into that purpose. That purpose is to glorify God in the love that He is through the grace He has shown. Since the showing of that grace was the first of His love in our new life, that grace must be the first of our reflection towards others. Since that grace was given us without measure, i.e, since no overshadowing we can cast will overwhelm the showing of His grace, then we must also reflect a measureless grace. The sins of others against us are great and small, but the forgiveness we must reflect looks not at the size of them but at whether or not it has covered them all. The call for us to die daily is the call for us to reflect Him daily, and the first we see of Him daily is still the gracious part of His love shining through the shadow we daily cast upon our own military service. What your Dad did to you remains in the grave. It is you who must remain out of the grave. Go to your Dad’s gravesite for no other reason than to reflect that which Christ shines upon you whether or not his shadow overwhelms his contribution by any amount more than your shadow overwhelms yours. Step into the first of your love for your Dad, and the rest of what can be known about that love will emerge from there.
Love you all,
Steve Corey
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