home
subscribe
advertise
contact
nelson mandela bay's family lifestyle
author:
theunis pienaar
sweet faith
issue:
7, spring 2008
Be patient as I tell you about the relationship with my fabulous girl. I'm working my way to explaining another relationship that is just as sweet and even more influential – one few know, because they've been lead to believe that debt and control are the basics of life and faith. I met her in 1993. We were students. Life was simple, enjoyable and filled with excited expectation. We were introduced by a mutual friend and on introduction he was very specific about the fact the she was his girlfriend. Despite this minor detail, she struck me as a very special individual – if I recall correctly, the words repeatedly flashing through my mind was “fabulous girl.” Fifteen years later, life is still enjoyable, perhaps even more so - and still filled with excited expectation, though not necessarily that simple anymore. We've been married for a solid 13 years and have three beautiful children sharing our excitement & continual expectation. The mutual friend, however, took a bit of offense at our liaison. For some inexplicable reason he did not take kindly to her becoming my girlfriend. My fabulous girl and I have experienced quite a bit, together. We've buried loved ones. We've counted our last bit of money & spent it on something ridiculous, without worrying about the consequences. We've cried with desperate disappointment and got up again to find a new way, tasting success and failure and new beginnings. In all of this, we've discovered each other and influenced each other and became more than we would ever have been on our own. None of this was difficult. The failure and disappointment and loss were difficult, but sharing it was not and neither was being transformed in the process. Sharing it was actually extremely sweet and becoming more as we shared all of this, was even easier. It just happened, without effort or intent. We did not sit-down one day, after the introductory friend grudgingly departed, solemnly deciding that we will go on a journey of growth, intentionally putting severe effort into getting to know each other and applying ourselves to the influencing of each other, or the being influenced, as we go through life's highs and lows. Of all things we've accomplished, this is one I cannot and she would not take credit for, yet it is the most marvelous of all our feats. I hope you are fortunate enough to understand, from your own experience, what I am describing. My fabulous girl and I have known this, not only in each other, but also in some of our friendships, in our relationships with our children and in all of our faith. This seems to be the most difficult for some people to understand – that our faith, mine and that of my fabulous girl, is not a matter of effort and intentional application. We did not sit-down one day, solemnly deciding that we will go on a journey of growth, intentionally putting severe effort into getting to know God and applying ourselves to being influenced by Him. As we share life with each other, we share life with Him. As we get angry with each other and apologize to each other and listen to each other, we get angry at Him and apologize and listen. Off course He is not human, so there is no seeing or touching or even listening, as we would do with each other. He is spirit and this brings into our relationship some limitations I believe even He Himself are aware of. We “listen” to Him as we “see” his interaction with David, the leader who murdered to cover up his promiscuity. We “hear” Him whispering into our own souls, as we “see” Him guiding Josef's life and Paul's and Joshua's – and sometimes we just “feel”, without being able to explain it to anyone else, that He has advised us & helped us to understand better and make decisions that might contradict all human logic, but take us to fantastic places. Sometimes we would ask Him to do something for us – not because he owes it to us, but in the same way I would ask my fabulous girl to help me with something, just because we share life and she has the ability to do it for me. And just as she would help me, without me accumulating a terrible debt that I would never be able to pay, He helps us, and we don't owe Him a thing. Perhaps this is the secret of our relationship - mine with my fabulous girl and ours with our children and our friends and God – that there is no debt and because there is no debt, there is no fear and no control. We've known relationships where debt & fear is the primary currency – we've even been entrapped by them, but found awesome and increasing freedom in walking away from them. The relationships that “work” for us, both human and divine, that influences us to become more than we were before, are the ones emptied of obligation. It is interesting that often the religion that purports to bring us into intimacy with God, presents Him as demanding - someone who is difficult to please and expects compliance to a magnitude of rules - someone who is ready to judge and punish and can only be known in the rules He has laid down and in perfect compliance to it. This is not the God we've come to know. It is actually astonishing that Christian religion is so often soaked in debt and guilt and blame, while the life of Jesus is about freedom and forgiveness. Did He not die on a cross to take away guilt and sin? If we are then not without guilt and sin and debt, but controlled by the obligation to do or not do 10 000 things – what kind of work did He do? Definitely not a complete one. The God we've come to know, has cleared the debt and He did this with a single purpose in mind – that I would not owe Him anything, and without debt, feel free and be free, to share life with Him. This is sweet faith, the only kind worth having and the only kind I “hear” Him talking about when I “see” Him sharing life.
| articles
|
homes
| life
| art
| sport
| well-being
| travel
| education
| food
| relationships
| money
| motoring
| fashion
| gardening
| horses
| books
| kids
| faith
| community
| NGO directory
