Oct 27

For a number of years, I have gotten lots of exercise. That has helped me. However, I wanted to exercise enough so I would not have to deal with my unhealthy eating patterns.

That strategy has not worked. In fact, that idea has led me to over exercise. I have worn out my body and injured myself. I am learning to use more moderate exercise.

I love to ride my bicycle. There are beautiful bike paths near where I live. I belong to a gym.

I feel like I am getting close to the point where I will be able to enjoy and respect my body enough that I will be able to learn healthier eating and to have enough love for my body to get fit. I can not respect my body by getting fit. I can only get fit because I respect my body.

Oct 28

I am experimenting with the idea of letting myself be a little hungry some time each day. My guess is that people who have healthy eating habits experience hunger most days. I wonder how much it would help me if I did not do hunger prevention eating.

I am hungry right now. I just got off a bike ride. I intended to stop somewhere for a meal. Nothing really sounded good to me or the restaurants I wanted to go to were so crowded that I did not want to eat there.

How do I feel? I feel a little nervous. I feel urged to quickly eat something, anything. What I want to eat is a piece of chicken, and some greens. I will cook my chicken on my George Foerman grill. Gina gave me the greens. They are delicious.

One reason I eat unhealthy fast foods is that I don’t have to remain hungry through the food preparation time. My lunch will take less than 15 minutes to prepare. I want to learn to experience short term hunger as anticipation not stress. I love the anticipation of waiting to open a gift. I see no reason that I could not learn to see hunger as exciting, fun waiting.

Oct 29

Last night I went to a housewarming for some wonderful friends. They served a Texas Barbeque where the caterer brought a barbeque pit he towed as a trailer. The same caterer had provided food for my daughter’s wedding. The wedding occured a couple of years ago.

The fact that I had the same food two years apart gave me a laboratory to observe the difference in my feeling about food after two years.

We had so little protein and meat in our diet after as a boy that I can easily give in to that old need and eat meat compulsively. Last night I had two small ribs and was satisfied.

They also served carrot cake. I do love carrot cake. I only ate one small forkful.

The real difference was not in how much I ate, but in the fact that there was not very much compulsion involved. I have a growing conviction that I can learn to eat healthily.

Oct 30

Yesterday, someone said to me. “I just have to tell you, you have to lose weight. Look at your big belly hanging over your waist.”

I said, “No you don’t just have to tell me that. What did I do that gave you permission to talk to me like that? Because if I can figure it out, I’ll never do it again. I do not give you permission to say anything like that to me ever again.”

He smiled at me and we went on talking. He is still my friend, but I hope he see’s the boundary I set for him.

The truth is, his critical remarks are not my problem. My problem is the critical remarks I make to myself about my appearance. If he was as consistantly mean to me about how I look as I am to me I would never talk to him again.

If I persistently see my self as a fat slob, I will act in a way that will insure I will be able to keep criticizing myself as a fat slob.

I am not a fat slob. If I believe what almost everyone says about me, I am a good man. [How dangerous it feels to me to publically write that I am a good man.] I want to learn to eat in a healthy way, but learning that will not make me a good man because that job is done. I am a good man already.

Nov1

I shared the harsh remarks my friend made about my body the other day and how I defended myself, at a meeting. [See journal entry for Oct 29]. Two woman talked to me after the meeting. They were so happy that I defended myself. That has been the response people have had everywhere I have shared the story.

The two women who talked to me after the meeting were bith very attractive woman and normally weighted. I told them I was thinking about buying a scale and weighing myself every day just to get past the scale shame.

They both said they avoided going to the doctor or only wore the lightest clothes when they went out of scale shame. It made me feel better because they shared that sense of weigh-in trauma with me.

Nov 2

I am staying with my sister Ruth and my brother-in law Ed for a few days. Last night Ed said, ” I am sure looking forward to having a bagel, cream cheese and ham for breakfast. That sure sounds good.”

His ability to defer eating pleasure, to wait to eat the desired food until he really hungry, and to enjoy the anticipation sounded very healthy to me. I might have eaten it last night, or I might have eaten it to keep from being hungry. For sure, waiting to eat the desired food would have been stressful to me as opposed to experiencing the delay as a enjoyable anticipation of future food delights.

I need to feel enough confidence about my Higher Powers willingness and ability to provide wonderful food for me, so that waiting to eat something becomes enjoyable. I eat to keep from getting hungry. I also eat it now to make sure I get the food.

Oct 20

My family life is extremely good and also somewhat painful. My trip to visit my family up north was very rewarding. My homecoming was very sweet due to the loving consideration of my local daughter. I hope to see another daughter soon. In the meantime I have very good communication with her. Still there is an extremely painful situation that has become an apparently permanent part of my life.

My eating habits do not affect my good relationships. My eating habits do not change that which is uncomfortable. I feel my pain. I see it as a part of being alive. To feel pain is human.
To know where I have failed and where I have not failed is important to me.

Eating is becoming less central to me. It is still important, but it does not define me. It is just one part of my life along with so much that I enjoy and some things I wish were different but over which I have no control.

Oct 21

I am home again. My daughter that lives locally supplied me with some nice, healthy food so I would have something to eat without going to the store.

I was encouraged that I was willing to be hungry in a controlled, limited way on my flight home. The airline only served unhealthy snacks, which I turned down. I thought about eating something as I waited at the airport, but I wasn’t hungry. Sometimes I have eaten food I did not want in order to keep from getting hungry later in the day. This time I chose to experience a little hunger.

Eating to preempt hunger is a habit I want to break. I want to not be afraid of the feeling of hunger.

Oct 22

These are very emotional days for me. Things have happened that are very hurtful to me. On the other hand, The emotional support I have received during this hard time has been very powerful, constant, and extremely accessible when I have needed it.

I feel so safe. It is not that I am able to protect myself from the pain of life. That I can not do. However, when the tough times come, I can reach out for the wonderful support that is so available to me. I feel like I can deal with the hard things because the help I need is always in place in my life .

The emotional trial I am walking through is effecting my eating, I am eating to much. The good news is that the food I am eating is good healthy food. I did eat some ice cream today, but I certainly don’t feel bad about that.

The thing that is most hopeful about the future of my eating, is that I am learning to accept eating help from people that love me. The same people that are loving me through this pain.

Oct 23

One of my favorite movies is “The Man From Snowy River” The hero is a young man that is good with horses. When he breaks a horse he works with the horse not against the horse.

One of the villains is a man that tends to be cruel. When he breaks a horse, he does it by terrifying the horse. He works against the horse to break the horse.

My learning to eat healthily is like the breaking of a horse in the movie. I can not fear myself into healthy eating. Being harsh with themselves might work for some people for awhile but harsh self criticism about my eating is perfectly counter productive for me.

Thanks to my daughters, especially Gina, I am working with myself about my eating. I keep seeing little signs that my attitudes about food are steadily improving.

Oct 24

Doing my best can be a very motivating idea or it can be a cruel master. If my best is some reteating, nonspecific goal, it is cruel. If my best takes into account my circumstances and makes allowances for them, it is motivating.

Growing up the sugeestion that I should do my best mostly meant that however well I did something, I could have done it better. Therefore, nothing I did was ever good enough. Appied to my eating, that idea keeps me feeling defeated.I never get my eating perfected. There is always someway I could improve.

If I make allowances for my current conditions, I can do my best in regard to food. I am in a difficult time emotiopnally. My best eating today is not as healthy as my best eating will be as I adjust and feel better about my current troubles.

Also, I can take the larger view and say that over the next 8 months I want to do my best to learn gradually better eating patterns. In that perspective, doing my best is not perfection, but more a question of learning from my mistakes. Doing my best to eat better, also includes learning to parent myself with tenderness.

Oct 26

I had lunch with a good friend. He is of Greek extraction and we ate at a Greek restaurant called George’s. The food is good and George is an interesting warm man.
I had a gyros sandwich and a greek salad. I was so hungry for a salad. We had a most interesting conversation. This is the first day that I have really felt energetic since this current episode of trouble began.

The lunch turned into a celebration. I had allowed myself to get very hungry in anticipation of going to George’s. I had been wanting to see this friend. We joked around with the owner George. We saw a beautiful young asian girl who is a close program friend. She was glad to see us and gave us both warm hugs. We took our time eating. We both ended up feeling full but not stuffed.

I think that is how healthy eating is supposed to feel. Eating Healthy is developing a good reputation with me. It does not seem as much of a drag as it used to.

Romans 3:23-24 - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus. [TNIV]

I learned the first half of the sentence that comprises Romans 3:23-24 in grade school. It was part of a Bible memory program well known through out the U.S. and, to some extent, throughout the world. Today, I have to wonder what motivated the program’s designers to truncate Paul’s message.

Taken by itself, 3:23 is a negative message. It says that “Everyone is a sinner.” Taken as a whole, the message is, “Yes, everyone is a sinner, but God has chosen to justify everyone.”

The first message was presented as saying you are lost. You have to accept Christ as your saviour if you don’t want to go to hell. The second message is that God has completely wiped out the guilt of your sins. There is nothing left for you to do but to let the reality of God’s all encompassing love become your power to actualize your own potential.

If you want to teach that God is going to send some people to hell, you must explain how a person that God has justified can possibly be in hell. Did God do an ineffectual job of justifying? Was the work of Christ on the cross insufficient to fully justify a person? To me, that is pure blasphemous foolishness.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek.” [KJV]

I believe that when Paul talks about salvation in Romans, he is not talking about eternal life. From Paul’s point of view, God has resolved the eternal life question by declaring every last one of us as justified. We are all going to be forever with God. Every last one of us.

Paul wants us to know that salvation has come. This salvation of love has the power to save this earthly, human life. We can start to improve things right now, right where we are, and we are guaranteed God’s help in doing that job.

The old statement of spirituality is that if you obey you will have peace. The new statement is since you have peace, obey.

Paul wants us to know that God loves us. That is the central reality of every person’s life. That is the good news. In Christ, God expressed his love for us all in language that is hard to misunderstand. The central message of the cross is that it says no effort is to extreme for God if it allows God to get through to us that he loves us.

Since we have that love secured forever, we can begin to use God’s love to learn that we are lovable, we can love each other, and, by that means, create cells of love that will allow us to live lovingly here and now in this world.

In other words, the good news of God’s invincible love can provide the basis for saving our lives in this world. Eternity is a foregone conclusion. Since that is true, let’s get on with the job of allowing God to bring his salvation to our lives in this world, in this time, in the space of this planet.

“Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:”

Salvation is by faith. The question here is:
“Salvation is the result of whose faith”?
“Am I saved by my faith or are we all saved by the faith of Jesus Christ?
For me, there is no difference in any of us. We all are saved by the faith of Jesus.

We all have these things in common:

1. We have no faith in and of ourselves. As Ephesians 2 says, faith is not of ourselves, it is God’s gift.

2. We all have sinned. Paul is not interested in de-emphasizing sin. To Paul, sin is a huge problem and it is a problem every single person has. Furthermore, whatever form sin takes in a person’ life, it is a life threatening problem. It is capable of ruining our life here on earth and it is capable of killing us. As he says in Romans 6, “The wages of sin is death.”

3. God has solved our problem. Because of the faith of Jesus Christ, we have all been justified. Every person’s salvation is a done deal. Salvation is a fact of every human’s history. We have all been saved.

It is left to us to incorporate the gift of salvation so that our human life becomes something beautiful and wonderful. I have seen people with solid Christian doctrine and people with virtually no doctrine learn to take advantage of God’s salvation in a life transforming way.

My 12 step experience has allowed me to witness the life giving love God has put in the world
in every category of human beings. It is not a doctrinal salvation. It is in no way a performance salvation because it does depend on me doing anything.For me it is a salvation that is a gift to the world given to everyone, [There is no difference], by the faith of Jesus Christ.

Developed with Morey’s help.

Oct 13

I read recently that the one completely necessary ingredient that a child needs to grow up healthy is another person in whom he can have complete trust. If there is no trustworthy person available, the child will grow up with a deep rage. This rage may be partially or totally submerged.

I grew up without anyone that I could trust. As a result, I grew up full of rage. Gradually, that rage has become less buried. For me, the mechanism that allows my rage to emerge for processing, is the sense that grows in me daily, that I have seemingly unlimited emotional resources in my life. These the abundance of these resources gives me a powerful sense of safety. The safer I feel, the more anger I can release.

My resources begin with my Higher Power. Added to that resource are my children and their families. Then I have my sisters and their families. I also have scores of friends. All my human resources feed my trust in my Higher Power and my Higher Power feeds my trust in my friends and family.

These resources make me feel safe enough to risk releasing my anger. The more of my anger I release, the less compulsive I am about my eating. My eating is far from free, but it is freer and less neurotic today than it has ever been.

Oct 14

It is easier for me to eat healthy when I am staying with my daughter. All the food here is healthy, tasty and abundant.

Yesterday, I helped her make vegetable soup. It contained onions, red peppers, cabbage, sweet potatoes,tomatoes, broccoli, green onions, celery, carrots, vegetable juice, and chicken broth. We made a huge pot full. After dinner, the leftovers were so abundant that it was a challenge to find freezer and refrigerator space for storage.

It was fun to prepare. It was even more fun to eat. It made me wonder why I frequently fight against cooking veggies when I am home. I like veggies fresh. I love salads. I order salads at restaurants. However, I nearly refuse to prepare them for myself.

Writing this is like reading a course synopsis for me. As I write this I am becoming aware that my hesitancy about eating veggies is on my Higher Power’s list of character defects He plans to help me with as this year progresses. Sounds good to me.

Oct 15

I weighed myself today. Guess what? I lost a few pounds. That felt nice. It is refreshing to see scale progress.

It is risky for me to weigh for several reasons:

1. If I have gained weight, it can throw me into a shame spiral that can result in unhealthy eating.
2.If I have lost weight, I tend to make weight loss my goal. I do not want to make weight loss my focus. I want my focus to be learning to healthy eating patterns.
3. If I lose weight, I immediately begin to doubt the accuracy of the scale. That doubting, self criticizing attitude can weaken the faith I have that God is helping me.

Still it sure was fun to see where the scale stopped moving. YES!!

Oct 16

Today, I read an article in the paper saying that there is growing scientific evidence that unhealthy eating habits may contribute to Alzheimer’s Disease. That scares me.

Will that fear help me avoid fatty foods. Specifically, will that fear help me avoid poorly prepared bean and cheese burritos. [My Long Beach Daughter makes delicious, healthy bean and cheese burritos.No Gina, I am not hinting, or am I?]

In general, fear is at best a temporary motivator for me. Often, after the initial desirable effect of helping me avoid a fatty food, there is an angry backlash. That backlash can result in a day of eating hell.

Even if the Alzheimer’s fear helps me avoid unhealthy food, it is still counter-productive. I don’t want to have food fear a year from now. By my next birthday, I want celebration to be one of the most developed characteristics of my eating habits.

Oct 17

I carried a watermelon in from my grand daughter’s garden. It was a 50 yard walk to the house. I had a tough time carrying the melon up 5 steps to the porch level. My daughter took the melon from me on the stairs because the extra weight was hurting my knees.

When we were in the kitchen we weighed the melon. It weighed 20 pounds. I am about 50 pounds overweight

I was reminded again of how important it is to me to learn to eat healthy. Whatever I get from over eating, can not be worth the the loss of mobility and the sacrifice of physical freedom the extra weight costs me.

Carrying the watermelon was motivational for me. I do not have to wait for 50 pounds of weight loss. Ten pounds would be a big help. Twenty pounds would be a wonderful gift to myself. Even five pounds would be significant.

I am motivated to be more open about my weight. I want to learn to exercise my will power not to condemn myself about what I eat or how I look. I want to keep the value with which my friends and family regard me in sight. I want to defeat food shame. I want to defeat secret eating. I want to be able to accept eating help from people who love me.

When I focus my will power on not eating to much it backfires on me. I have worn out that strategy over many decades. However, I can use my willpower to work on the things listed in the previous paragraph. I am convinced that weight I lose that way will stay off.

Oct 18

I was fifteen years old and a sophomore in high school. I was in a new school. We had moved because we wanted to be out of the apartment where my Dad had died.

It was report card time. In that system, I carried my report card from class to class all day. As the day progressed, each teacher added the grade for that class to my report card.

I got an “A” in my first class. I began to hope for a really good report card. Class after class, my grade was better than I expected. My excitement was building. I felt that my Mom was going to be so pleased. I felt that I finally was going to win her approval. Maybe it would give her a little happiness that would be a some relief for her from her grief over my Father’s death.

There was one flaw in my plan to give my Mom a great report card. My last class was Spanish. I was not sure I would be getting a good grade in that class. When I saw my Spanish grade I was elated. I had gotten an “A”.

The bus ride home seemed like it was going to last forever. Finally, I was home. I ran in the door and handed my Mom my report card. She glanced at it and devastated me.

She said,” George, I don’t see why you always have to prove you are smarter than every one else.” She then threw the report card down in a pile of old magazines.

I felt so confused that I was dizzy. The room was spinning. I don’t remember what I did next. I do know I made no protest to her.

As was my custom, I spent the next few days processing what had happened. My conclusion was that I was never going to get the warmth and nurture I needed so badly from my Mom. I wasn’t sad about it. I just felt that it was hopeless to try to win her support.

I needed to find a source of comfort. I did not consciously say,” I will comfort myself with food.”
However, That is the decision I made. That chioice to seek comfort in food instead of people is still in effect today.

“For I long to see you, that I may impart unto you some spiritual gift, to the end ye may be established; that is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

This passage is very important to me. Paul wants to see the Romans. He has planned to go to Rome in the past, but has been frustrated in his attempts to get there. He is he is bursting with spiritual gifts he wants to give to the Romans.

His desire to bless these people comes out in his writing When he says, “I long to see you.” In other words, I long to let you know of God’s inexhaustable grace.

I am told that the word translated “Bless” in this passage means something like what we mean when we use the word “Happy”. For example, we say,”I want my kids to be happy. Paul wants the Romans to live in the abundance of God’s provision for them. In that manner, they can be blessed or in our language, happy.

God feels the same way about us. He longs for us to live in joy. We are prepared to receive such a small slice of what God wants to give us. We feel unworthy of a good life. We feel we are too twisted to ever be happy. We push away blessing. Like Paul, God longs to come to us and give us the firm foundation for life for which we all long.

As soon as Paul writes that he wants to impart a gift to the Romans, he realizes that there is more to be said. It is not just that he has a gift for the Romans. He acknowledges that the Romans have something to give to him.

“That is, that I may be comforted together with you by the mutual faith both of you and me.”

Paul understood that he was as dependent on the Romans as the Romans were dependent on him. In any real fellowship, there is that mutual benefit. You have gifts for me and I have gifts for you.

I do not trust any relationship that is one way. If someone only wants to take form me, I am uncomfortable. If someone only wants to give to me, I am uncomfortable. A healthy relationship is always of mutual benefit.

“For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ: for it is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth; to the Jew first, and also to the Greek. For therein is the righteousness of God revealed from faith to faith: as it is written, the just shall live by faith.”

It is important to how I understand Romans to look at the phrase “From faith to faith.” Let me start this discussion by reviewing what I said commenting on Romans 3:22.

In my discussion of Romans 3:22, I take the view point that our salvation is not by our faith but by the faith of Jesus Christ. It was the faith of Christ that led him to the cross and enabled him to endure the cross that gives me and everyone else in the world our salvation.

That means the foundation of the Christian good news is the faith of Christ. Two thousand years ago, salvation came to the entire human race, because Jesus had such immense faith.

However, that isn’t where faith ends. In order to give me the life here on earth that God wants me to have, I have to add my faith to the faith of Christ. So my salvation history goes from the already established acceptance of me by God because of the faith of Jesus, to my faith in God’s goodness, that grants me the willingness to accept the help of God so that my day to day life can become wonderful.

At Birth or before, the faith of Christ gives me salvation then at some point in my life, my faith puts God’s salvation to work, and makes the power of God’s salvation applicable to my day to day life here on earth. Now I want to look at the phrase “From faith to faith.”

FROM FAITH
My eternal destiny is a given. Heaven and Hell are no longer an issue. It is a given of my life and everyone else’s life that we all are going to spend eternity with God. In an eternal sense, we are all saved. That is the sense of the two words, “from faith.” The realization that God loves me is where my faith finds its beginning point.

I do not need to accept Christ as my saviour. I do not need to be born again. I do not need to accept a particular doctrinal position. I do not need to muster up enough faith in order to be saved. The good news is, that it was the faith of Christ on Calvary that gave each of us permanent, irrevocable, unchanging peace with God and that happened a very long time ago.

That is the sense of what St. John taught us in John 1 :

“That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world.”

Christ enlightened every man, not just Christians, or Westerners, or Jews, or Holy Spirit baptized people, or good people or any other category of mankind that our bent toward divisiveness causes us to create. Christ has already touched every person.

There is a related text in Acts 2:

“And it shall come to pass in the last days, saith God, I will pour out of my Spirit upon all flesh…”

In the Old Testament the Holy Spirit was given to specific men so they could prophesy [Like Elijah or Isaiah] or rule [Like Moses or David]. The new arrangement is that God is giving us all the Holy Spirit so that our sons and daughters, old people and young people, men and woman can hear from and speak for God.

There are simply no qualifications necessary for receiving the Holy Spirit. There are no exceptions. If I believe “All” means everyone when it is said “For all have sinned…”, it is dishonest to claim that all means only certain people when it talks about the outpouring of the Holy Spirit on all flesh.

The faith of Jesus has saved everyone even before they are born. The light of Jesus has enlightened every person every second of every day that person has lived. The Holy Spirit has been poured out on every person ever born. That is the Gospel.

TO FAITH

God has totally accepted all of us on the basis of the Faith lived out and died for by Jesus. However the story does not end there. Salvation is from faith [The faith of Jesus] to faith [My faith]. My faith does not bring salvation. My faith actuates God’s power so that it can be applied to my everyday life, in this world, in this body, at this time.

Many people have faith in the message of Jesus, who don’t believe in Jesus. I do not think that matters in the least to Christ. Jesus did not come to aggrandize himself. God sent Jesus to give us a better picture of God. God is love. God is light. God is unmarked by the prejudices, fears and angers that corrupt me. God’s love is pure, undiluted, creative, powerful, and accessible. That is the gospel of Jesus.

God is, who God is, quite independent of anything I believe or do. When the unmanageability of my life, knocks down the fences I have erected against God’s love, I come face to face with the God Jesus wants me to know. One AA man said, “Most of us had our first clear glimpse of a God who really cares while we were puking in a toilet.” In the same way, when the terror of a battlefield destroys a persons God blocking defences, that person is suddenly aware of a God that cares.

Here is how Jesus said it in The Beatitudes:

“Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.”

When, for whatever reason, we want to learn a new way to live out our lives , God is there. That is the gospel.

Will a person that turns his life over to God ultimately come to the place that he acknowledges Jesus? Frankly, that is none of my business. That is strictly a matter between that person and her or his Higher Power.

I do think that more people would come to recognize the role of Jesus, if the church would offer a view of Christ that is as beautiful as Christ actually is. I know the Jesus I know today, after twelve years in 12 step recovery is far lovelier than picture of Christ the church gave me as a boy.

Now I want to look at another part of this scripture. If our eternal destiny is a settled matter, in what sense is it that the Gospel is salvation to those who believe. We have already touched on the answer. The term salvation refers to a changed life here on earth. It is not refering to eternal salvation.

When we understand that God is everlastingly on our side, we can begin to turn our will and our life over to him. At that point, our human life can begin to experience the power of God for the salvation of our human, earthly life.

Applying the word save to this life as opposed to eternal salvation is common biblical practice. For example if you search the Psalms for the word “Save” it normally refers to saving the human physical life. That is normal for the whole Old Testament.

Using the word save to refer to this life is common in the New Testament also. For example:

For whosoever will save his life shall lose it: and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it. [Matthew 16]

Therefore, it is reasonable to assume that Paul’s use of the word salvation refers to our life here on earth and not to eternal life.

“Therefore as by the offence of one judgment came upon all men to condemnation; even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”

This passage is a comparison of the damage done by the first Adam, [Of Garden of Eden fame], and the grace made available to the world by the life and work of the Second Adam. [Jesus Christ].

Paul argues that the problem of sin became the problem of every person of every subsequent generation when Adam sinned in The Garden. The first Adam did something that took us all down.

He offers no proof or explanation for his belief that Adam made us all sinners. I think that he simply looked at the destructive nature of the world around him and felt that all people and all human institutions, were all fatally flawed and carried with them the seeds of their own destruction.

I see how he felt. I can feel a deep despair if I look at my world without the hope that God’s grace daily gives me. World news is almost always bad news.

Then Paul looks at the life and work of Christ and concludes that the negative force begun by the sin of the first Adam has been greatly exceeded by the grace that has come into the world by the life and work of Christ. As he says, a few verses after the verse we are considering, “But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound:”

In other words First Adam brought sin to us all but Second Adam brought salvation to us all. Look at the second half of our text. “…Even so by the righteousness of one the free gift came upon all men unto justification of life.”

A standard translation says,”…Leads to justification and life for all men.” [English Standard Version] Here again, notice the word “ALL”.

The “Justification of life” came to all people of all times because of the work of Jesus. There is no standard of behavior or belief system or faith in Jesus required. Salvation is a totally free gift given by God to absolutely everyone.

Whether or not I actualize the gift in this life, in this body, in this place at this time is another matter to be discussed later. But the issue of eternal salvation is a completely settled matter; settled by the faith lived out by Christ.

I wrote this to a friend back East who had lost her brother:

“He starved to death at a banquet table full of food and died of thirst by a stream. For years, all his family wanted to do was to be able to show him love. If it had been up to you people, he would have died surrounded by his loving family”

So it is with so many of us. We live out our earthly life unaware that we have been completely accepted, redeemed, justified and every other good thing by God. That is God’s gift to us all. May we each enjoy and be empowered by this gift every day from now on.

Dear Helen,

I am reading a series of articles about kids raised without emotional support. In one of the articles it is said that the one total necessity for a child to grow up healthy, is that the child has to have a person that he or she can absolutely trust.

Neither you nor I had that. Your sisters, Amy and Patricia, had that person, namely you. My younger sister had that person in me.

I have seen that Amy and Patricia trust and revere you. I saw it in their eyes as they looked at you at the meeting a few months ago.

After I saw that you were their person of consummate trust, I was able to see the same thing about myself and my younger sister. I was the trusted person for her. I was finally able to see the acceptance and respect that has been in her eyes all these years. That was a gift you gave me.

We grew up backwards. We chose to be a parent to our siblings, In that way, we allowed our siblings to safely mature. Now, as adults, we are giving ourselves the chance to grow up. We are parenting ourselves so we can become the people we were created to be. May God help us be kind, flexible and understanding self parents.

In a novel I am reading, a character says some thing like “The most necessary ingredient for growing up healthy is toughness. I am understanding that you and I are very tough. Never mind the drinking, motorcycling, fighting kind of toughness. All that alcoholic toughness is a fear cover up as far as I am concerned. We are the truly brave people. We are looking our fear square in the eye and calling our fear voices on their lies.

I am so grateful you are my friend,

George
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