“Yet the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show you compassion.
For the Lord is a God of justice.
Blessed are all who wait for him.”
Isaiah 30:18 (NIV)
I had an embarrassing experience recently at church. I was asked to read the scripture in place of a lector friend, who usually reads on weekdays while I usually read on weekends.
To clarify, reading on the weekends is a little different than reading on weekdays. The weekday lector reads one scripture plus a Psalm. The weekend lector reads two scriptures, but no Psalm, because a cantor sings the Psalm on weekends.
So the friend asked me to read for her on a Wednesday. When the time came, I walked up to the podium and in front of the weekday morning crowd, I read a very long scripture passage from chapter 34 in the book of Ezekiel. The scripture was not only long, but very intense. It was about how grieved God was because of the bad shepherds, who neglected their sheep. Somehow, as I read the passage, I was feeling all the passion that God felt, and by the time I finished, I started walking back to my seat, forgetting all about the Psalm that was to be read next.
As I started going to my seat, the priest calmly said, “the Psalm! ”
I thought, what did he just say?
Then he said again, “the Psalm!” Suddenly I stopped, realizing I forgot to read the second reading, which was the Psalm!
I was so embarrassed and quickly returned to the podium, pulled myself together and carefully read the Psalm.
After I completed the reading and my work was done, I turned, looked at my priest, smiled and nodded, and he returned the smile and nodded back, as if to imply, ‘It’s all good.’
I was relieved that I completed the task, but was still very embarrassed at my error.
After the service, people came up to me and said they never even noticed that I forgot to read anything, because they were still thinking about the intense first reading about the shepherds not shepherding their sheep. I thank God for such gracious and forgiving people who comforted me while minimizing my senior moment of air headedness.
Just then, the priest came over to me with arms outstretched, hugging me, saying, “It’s okay, we’re all human.”
I was touched that he went out of his way to extend his grace toward me, especially with a hug.
The whole thing reminding me that God approaches us the same way. After we fail in some way, He comes to us with open arms, to hug and comfort us in spirit, after our failures or sins. His arms are open toward us, as the priest’s were that day. God offers us so much grace and mercy, if we are only willing to receive it.
Some people may be too focused on their failures, but God always sees our potential for redemption, as the words of a Brandon Lake song : “I see trauma, I see worthless, but You see something You can work with.”🎵🎵🎵
The Lord yearns to work with us, to lift us up after every mistake or failure. He’s far more gracious to us than any human person could be.
He wants to show us His love and compassion, with arms always open, ready to pour more grace upon us.
Lord, open our eyes to see how gracious you are towards us even in our failures and mistakes. Your love overcomes all. Amen
