These two quotes taken from different blogs have interwoven themselves in my thoughts this week; from John and Olive Drane at 2 Church mice this:
"One other thing we’ve been thinking about is the way Brian (Mclaren) focused the atonement debate, with this question: what or who do we need to be saved from - from God (who is angry with us), or from evil, which is against both us and God?"
and then this from fellow synchroblogger Jeff Goins:
"It took me awhile to realize what John meant when he told the early believers to "walk in the light." He wasn't calling for perfection; he was calling for confession...
.....I didn't realize that the first step towards the light had little to do with moral-ism and everything to do with honesty in the context of community. Such openness provokes real fellowship, which inevitably leads to healing..."
It strikes me that these two quotes fit together well, and at the heart of that fit is the question of how we see and relate to God. If we are too afraid to walk out into the light. if we are afraid of thunderbolt reprisals from God then we will cower in the shadows.
It is only in the realisation that God is for us and not against us that we can with all of our faults and flaws, all of our questions and vulnerabilities step confidently into the light and look to a God whose desire is to help us and not to harm us.
We need to do this in order to find ourselves in a place where wholeness is a possibility and healing will flow unhindered. In the shadows our faults are magnified by specters of despair, in the shadows we hear the whispers of doubt...
... we need more than anything to see the love of God for what it really is, passionate- yes, vindictive- no! The trouble is that even in the light we live with shades of grey... we have to, for now!
