Frailty

I'm writing this piece after an reflecting on an interaction I had with a friend. He had done away with a vice for quite a number of weeks. Then after a sequence of frustrating events on a Friday. He picked up the vice again. Bewildered didn't even begin to capture what I felt in the moment, when I found out. He was doing so well. Now we had gone back to square one. 

The situation was an unpleasant reminder of human weakness. Surely, we all have vices that we struggle with. Habits and tendencies we are not proud of. We all just crumble in different ways and in different circumstances. Taking a leaf from material science, carbon exists in two forms. What we know as diamonds and graphite. Diamonds are the hardest naturally occurring substance on Earth, and they cannot conduct electricity at all. On the other hand, graphite is soft and an excellent conductor. Both are made of the same carbon atoms, just arranged differently. As a result of that, their physical properties are different. Much like the human psyche, we all have different arrangements and pressure points. 

I think what made me frustrated about my earlier mentioned friend, was that his vice was foreign to me. I couldn't quite sympathise with him, so I felt let down. It's easy to judge, when you haven't walked a mile in the other person's shoes. You can quickly complain about how they are walking slow, or wonder why their gait is strange. Ignorance inhibits grace. We are often less gracious to those we are removed from, and know little about. 

Looking at things from the other side. We do not always get the full picture of what people are going through. At best we can get a limited understanding from the façade, we perceive in our brief interactions with each other. If I had cameras following me everywhere on a livestream. I am sure the viewers would see, how cumbersome and pathetic I can be. Even at what might seem like my best. Underneath the surface, there's chaos that just hasn't found it's way to the top yet. 

This leads me back to the words of Paul. As he writes to the church in Corinth, he boasts about his weaknesses. The apostle is only able to this because he realises, that he is an instrument in a higher power's hands. Despite, the many ways we are imperfect God can work through us for His glory. Grace captures this so perfectly, because who can say they perfectly deserve to be where they are, or have achieved everything completely by their own ability. It takes humbly stepping back to see that all through it, all through the stumbling, and the slow progress it's by grace alone, the weak man will finish the race.