As I look around me today I can see that everything has a mark. The failures of yesterday have taken their toll. Life’s tattoos stand out as birthmarks on every aspect of my life; clearly visible for anything who could be bothered to take a casual glance. I am learning that there is no where to run or hide. There is little point anyways, I already bear the mark and carry the infection of the curse from day’s past.
I don’t find it helpful, useful, or comforting to know that there are others who share this lot. Our egos tell us that we don’t deserve the situation we are in, but in my heart I know that this isn’t true. One watches as public denials splash across the headlines of the daily papers, knowing that on any given day my denials would sound just as hollow, insincere, and self serving. In some ways it is surprising that anyone finds it hard to deny that they carry the marks of past decisions that were self centric, ego nourishing, and exploitive.
The Spirit is calling us. My heart tells me that I will never be rid of yesterday but Divinity whispers something different. God continues to call us to lives of compassion, mercy, love, acceptance, and hope! The call isn’t one of tomorrow, it is for today, beginning in this moment and every moment forward. God lives in the present, looking for a home in your life and mine. This isn’t a call of ignorance, where our past will come out to haunt us at some random moment in the future. God knows everything, more than we do ourselves, and in that knowledge took action and commissioned the Spirit to guide us into relationship and into our created purpose.
The marks we bear will stay for awhile, but they will go away! The time is coming when a new home is prepared for you and me by God. In that City “never again will anything be cursed.” (Revelation 22.3) What can begin now will be our complete reality!
