The preface to my life
I said, ‘I will confess my transgressions to the Lord.’
And you forgave the guilt of my sin. Psalm 32:5
Read Genesis 3:1—8
When the sin, the shame and the scandal of public figures are exposed they disarmingly admit to ‘an error of judgement’. I very easily identify with Eve’s error of judgement. She falls in with the view that God is a cheat, out to limit us. I have known that error. Because I live in a culture whose fundamental ethic is self-fulfilment and we are quite chary of self-denial, I well understand what an error of judgement it could be to deny myself. More than that, it would be downright immoral. I must have what is good for food. I must have what delights my eyes. I must have what assures me of my own wisdom. I must have it all, and I must have it without God! The basic error of judgement.
My loving God, there is really nowhere for me to hide. I cannot distance myself from Eve or from Adam. I know their story. I recognise it as my own. You have allowed it to stand at the beginning of the Bible, the preface to my life, for all to see. All your gracious dealings with humanity, your costly saving actions, the whole Bible full of them, have been dealing with this kind of humanity. It is the humanity that defies you even while it is made for you. I have felt the resistance to you as powerful within me as my very life force. Yet you have declared yourself for me. You have declared yourself for defiant sinners. Christ died for us. I mean he died for us as sinners.[1] I only ask this night for the grace to stop hiding behind my confounding excuses. No more ‘errors of judgement’. Rather, ‘Lord, have mercy on me, a sinner.’
[1] Romans 5:8