Redemption

noun

1. an act of redeeming or atoning for a fault or mistake, or the state of being redeemed.
2. deliverance; rescue.
3. Theology. deliverance from sin; salvation.
4. atonement for guilt.

I’ve been spending a lot of time in walking prayers.  You know, those moments you ‘shotgun’ a prayer up into heaven, hoping they’ll stick.  I’ve also done quite a bit of reflection on my life, leading to questions that I pose to myself.  

Questions like:

Who saved me?

What’s my purpose?

Where is all this leading?

I know I’m not alone in this.  I’ve talked with enough of you to realize we all have these types of questions inside us.

Other Questions:

What will my legacy be?

Will I be loved?

Will I make a difference?

The first big ones that I ask people, strangers, friends, coworkers if given the chance…

Where do you place your hope?

What do you trust?

It’s amazing to see how you can elicit a conversation not by singling out our own faith, but by honestly seeking to learn about another human being.  And by asking a deep question that they may not even know the answer to in that moment.  

But before you do this you have to answer those questions for yourself.  Can’t talk to others about faith, hope, spirit shit without knowing who you are, and what brought you through the trials you’ve faced. 

I’m redeeming myself.  I am still the selfish person I have always been, but I do find that I want desperately to be more.  Not singing in the choir, preaching to masses, finding remote jungle villages to dwell in and reach.  I just want to make some small mark with the time I have left. 

And I’d like everyone who reads this to be a part of that.

I found my redemption.  I carried unwarranted guilt and the shame for years.  But there are so many who can’t find that place of rest.  If you have real relationship with others, I ask you to search those around you.  There’s probably someone in your group, in your work, parent at the ballfield who desperately needs to know that there is HOPE.

And at this time of year there’s so much fake hope that maybe one person reaching out to another in honest connection could let someone without any hope find something real.  

You can’t smother them with God and Religion (though we could argue “true religion”) because they don’t need that.  He fed them before he taught them.  He walked and listened to them before he healed them.  He cried for one before he gave him new life.

I’ve done it all wrong.  My whole fucking life.  

We have to meet each other where we are, not with piety or the thinly veiled guise of ‘we care about others’.  Just reach out.  Find that one person near you that might need to know that you care.  Show them you have hope and maybe they’ll see something that often disappears this time of year for many out there (it’s not Yo-Ho-Ho for all of us!).

I’m paying back a debt of gratitude to the one who saved my ass when I didn’t deserve it.  Then he did it again – when I REALLY didn’t deserve it.

Will you?

Reach out to ONE person around you. 

Show them you care. 

Offer something more than mere words or false promises of Joy.  

Lend them a hand.  Give them your ear.  Sup with them.

We all carry burdens.  But when you feel that weight come off, it’s like you just need to share some of that good MoJo with others!

Peace,

Chad