Twisting Denials

If one reads the news with an interview, listens to a corporate speaker, or has a conversation with anyone talking about his or her personal disciplines, you often find a common thread running through each.  Without any intention of being harsh or judgmental, I would suggest that those being quoted, speaking, and sharing their performance often twist reality to conform more to an ideal instead of talking about the reality you and I know day to day.  The clich? is true; it is easier to see another’s minute failures than see the colossal ones that you have authored.  It is also true that in the darkness and silence of the night there is no place to run or hide.
 
Jesus confronted the denials of his day with a force that doesn’t seem to be appropriate in our day and age. 
 
“‘You persist in repeating the works of your father.’
 
They said, ‘We're not bastards.  We have a legitimate father: the one and only God.’”  (John 8.41)
 
The sequence of holding a clear mirror and hearing a twisting denial was alive even then!  I found myself wondering aloud how others could sleep at night.  I puzzled over the lack of congruence between the public self and the private.  I found myself trembling in fear as I looked to the future.  As I reflected on the sequence of my reaction a twisting denial came into focus.  My wonder and fear was over the image I saw of myself!  Ignore everyone else as bad as he or she might be.  Was I any different; perhaps not as much as I want to believe.
 
I don’t have to continue the denial because I’m only person likely to believe, even temporarily.  Divinity knows the truth.  God has anticipated our failure, then, now and even in the future, and has a solution ready.  I see the bright light of today as a sign that with each morning you and I can choose to begin a new path; full of light, humbleness around our failures, and confidence in what God will do.