Our local high school band practices outside on October evenings. The traditional band sounds float up our hill. Even from a distance I can hear them getting better and better each night. When they start I can’t identify any particular song but after a couple of weeks familiar tunes fill the moonlit evenings. Practice and improvement is our human experience. Only the abnormally gifted do things well on the first attempt. The rest of us try and err, try and err. I don’t think the sound “err” is by chance. “Err” is what we feel as we try. Anything worth knowing, any skill worth doing requires work.
Salvation requires work. The good part for us is Jesus did the work for us, which causes us to ask is there anything for me to do. Regarding salvation the answer is “No.” However, what follows can be very difficult. What follows is character development. After being saved we begin the journey of change from a self-centered, egotistical being to one willing to make major sacrifices for others. It isn’t easy. After decades we still have moments when the old man (Paul’s name in Romans for us when we began) rears its ugly head.
This evening an overly enthusiastic political volunteer stood in the middle of a crosswalk waving his sign. In Massachusetts we have to stop when someone is in the crosswalk. I stopped. But I thought, “Hey idiot, you just lost a vote for your candidate.” Really now. I should be past that by now. But alas I was reminded the old man is still there ready to rear his ugliness merely because I was inconvenienced. Practice. Practice. I need more practice. “err.”
Written by Roger Bothwell on October 10, 2013
Spring of Life Ministry, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org