Hhhhhhmmmmmmmm. I didn't think that I was raised in a bubble but tonight I'm thinking that perhaps some of you don't know what Luther's Small Catechism is? I pulled mine off from the book shelf and it almost breaks into two in my hands. The binding is frayed and masking taped (but from the 90's so the tape itself is crisp and useless), the name (maiden of course) is penned and markered and cursive, the pages are highlighted-colored and smiley face stickered and doodled up with who-knows-what. It's really ridiculous. And the last page says in my pre-teen handwriting, "The Just shall live by his faith Habakkak 2:4 The Just Shall live by his Faith Habakkak 2:4".
I went to my catechism for The Fifth Petition: And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.
What does this mean?
We pray in this petition that our Father in heaven would not look upon our sins, nor on their account deny our prayer; for we are not worthy of anything we ask, neither have we deserved it. But we pray that He would give us everything by grace, for we daily sin much and deserve nothing but punishment; and we on our part will heartily forgive and readily do good to those who sin against us.
As an additive to an earlier post -The commitment to my blog has been a task to think about my faith every day. And more importantly a challenge to search out the random threads of thought that weave through the weeks. Without the task of something to write about I would have let the sour addresses at my co-workers roll off my back. With the task of contemplating our Lord; I transposed those from sticky notes through weekly posted sermon into a semi-formulated set of paragraphs.
It's not perfect.
And it's more than I would have done otherwise.
Love you all.
And pray for you often in my thoughts.
-nell
I find it always humbling to see my thoughts from years gone by - especially where my faith is concerned. It always seems juvenile, even in my adult years. I hope that God sees my thoughts in the same way - moving from the pablum of infancy through the junk food of the teenage years and into the semi-healthy diet of an adult, as I digest the living word of the Lord.
ReplyDeleteLoves,