Definitive

Whenever anyone has tried to teach me something, it never fails that they will give me the rundown of the rules and regulations and finish by saying “Now, be careful, there is always an exception to the rule” For that very reason, I have been encouraged to avoid definitive’s like ‘always’ or ‘never’. I mean, it can’t always be one way if there is sometimes an exception. No one wants to look foolish by making a promise and then being unable to keep it.

I get that. Since I’m not perfect I can’t guarantee anything I do or say won’t have an exception. I might want to say NEVER or ALWAYS with complete sincerity. That doesn’t mean I have the power to follow through on it. I mean, I can say I will never leave someone and then have something out of my control tear me away from them. I can say I will always be on time but have something out of my control make me late. My point being, I can only strive for Never and Always – I can’t promise it.

Which got me to thinking about how hard it is to trust in other people’s promises. Knowing that I’m not perfect and even the best of my intentions doesn’t mean I can successfully follow through – how can I possibly trust anyone else’s never or always? Well, I can’t. If I do, I’ll get hurt when they don’t follow through. Does that mean I shouldn’t believe the best in people? No. It means that I should be honest about their abilities so that when they do break that definitive, that absolute – I can remember that it isn’t their fault. I can remember to cut them some slack. I can remember to forgive them for being imperfect.

Perhaps the reminder of imperfection was what I needed to bring me back to the fact that there is someone who can declare those definitive’s. God. He alone has the power to follow through on every promise, every declaration. Sometimes though it’s very much a head knowledge and not a heart knowledge.

This morning as I was driving into work the word Grace came to mind. But when it did, it came to mind in all capital letters going down a page – waiting for me to come up with words for each letter. This is what I came up with:

God’s
Redemption
Always
Covers
Everything

It’s a really simple idea, really. So simple that when I say it out loud my brain automatically says “duh, you know that!”

But if I know that, why is it that sometimes I forget? Why is it that when I do something wrong I forget that God’s redemption is big enough to cover everything, even the thing I think is so big it can’t. Why do I forget sometimes that there is never a time when God won’t love me because I’m always covered by His redemption of me?

Maybe it’s because I make my God smaller than He is, less than He is and more like the people in my life who are imperfect. I forget how Amazing and Awesome and Perfect in Power He is. I forget that because I’ve been redeemed He doesn’t see all the ugly imperfect things in my life as my definitive. I forget that his GRACE, the very embodiment of His love – covers a multitude of sins. Including the fact that I forget.