All the Right Things

May 16, 2009

Today's Reading: 2 Samuel 7-8 and Mark 9

A lot people can relate to Peter, for many good reasons. One of them is because he usually had this habit of saying really stupid things. For example, when Jesus was transfigured, Peter talks about building three tabernacles. I’m sure that he meant well, whatever the heck he meant.

This is the same one who meant well when he said: “surely this will not happen to you”. This is referring to the crucifixion, at which Jesus said: “get behind me, Satan”. I’m sure that Peter was regretting opening his big old mouth that day.

I’ve been Peter, as I remember that I had a time in my life where it seemed like I couldn’t say anything but the wrong thing. Sometimes I think Peter denied Christ simply because he was guilty of saying the sin of saying the wrong thing rather than outright loss of faith.

It’s good to know that there are characters in the Bible that I can relate to. That is, people who do stupid things. I want to know characters in the Bible who make social blunders, as well as stumble and fall.

Then there are other Bible characters, who seem to do nothing but good things all the time. Take David for example. Here is a guy who literally kicked butt and took names. This guy probably had some sort of serious trophy case.

Of course, I think we all know that David did screw up. I really don’t want to go into detail on that, but it was as bad a screw up as Peter’s denial. Then again, it is wrong to compare sins.

The truth is that we all have good days where we do many things right, and then we have days where we just keep screwing things up all the time. The issue is not to characterize ourselves. If we wanted to that, then you should know that we are pretty much screwed up from the beginning. You know, that whole original sin thing.

Yet that whole thing with being perfect is just so impossible. There are those who believe that perfection is completely possible to achieve. I say that is true until proven otherwise.

I would assume that the path of perfection requires leaving behind all of our mistakes. Just today, my daughter was talking about how “we all make mistakes”. I said to her “and your Dad would know”. My daughter didn’t think it was funny, and I can see why.

It’s not good to focus on humanity’s ability to make mistakes.