+Luke 7:47 “I tell you, her sins—and they are many—have been forgiven, so she has shown me much love. But a person who is forgiven little shows only little love.”
If I were to be entirely honest with a person sitting across from me at a coffee shop in regards to this verse, I would have to say that it haunted me for a time. My first reaction to reading this scripture is something akin to having wounded pride. The thought flickers through my mind, ‘just because I didn’t spend a season of my life purposefully walking away from God-am I only able to love others to a certain capacity?’ Maybe I even allowed myself to buy into this lie because it was a way to pacify my apathy when it came to love in action. These thoughts amongst others have lead to me grappling with the validity of a testimony that is surrounded by the walls of churches. Mine was a childhood surrounded by felt boards and Easter sunrise breakfasts (which I clearly remember sleeping through).
As I got older, and people would ask what my testimony was, I began to feel like didn’t have anything worth telling. I knew God had saved me, but was it possible that having grown up knowing about him from day one could have actually negated my ability to experience his grace in some way? God had miraculously rescued people in my life from life altering addictions, he had healed them from terminal illnesses, He had plucked them out of cycles of familial destruction. Me? I said a prayer when I was five years old. Big deal.
In the last few years God has begun to show me the reality behind the lie I had believed. In the very act of letting myself think this way I had begun to buy into the Pharisee’s propaganda, after all what had I been forgiven of? You know, since I had grown up in church.
+James 2:10 And the person who keeps all of the laws except one is as guilty as the person who has broken all of God’s law.
Just because my sins have been so much more inverted then that of someone who found salvation on the streets doesn’t mean I’ve been saved from any less. The question that I now have had to wrestle with is whether my hypocritical tendencies are worse than an open disobedience. But does it matter? I can’t judge the actions and heart of another when I have been hiding behind the faith of my parents for half of my life. In the past years I came face to face with the ugliness of religious routine. I found that it traveled often with it’s best friend of being offended quickly. But my life, though it may not be a spiritual Cinderella at first glance, is all the same a testament to the faithfulness of a powerful and loving God. Is a shattered life put back together any more miraculous then the whole piece of glass remaining intact?
No matter that state you find yourself in—you have a story to tell about God’s grace at work in you. This truth has only become all the more clear as I continue to be privy to the stories of other’s lives. Never take for granted the chapter God has written for you. Don’t write yourself out of it by assuming someone else is better or lower than you.
I have been forgiven for all the things I’ve thought, for all the things I’ve done and for all the things I would have done if I didn’t have the people in my life God has blessed me with. My one lie, my one hard hearted response to God-more than qualified me for separation from my Savior. Yet I find myself with a melancholy smile playing on my lips this night, as I am—underneath it all—content. I’ve been forgiven much. God help me to also love much.
