Casting the sins to the currents of God's grace - (Not so) Wordless Wednesday

"The Tashlich (literally, "casting") is a tradition dating back to the Middle Ages in which the sins of the repentant are ceremonially cast into the deep, ever-flowing currents of God's grace. It is a time of both penitence and celebration as a year's worth of shotcomings and failures are acknowledged, accepted, and then washed away so that life can begin again, fresh, with no mistakes in it."

Rachel Held Evans

¹⁸ Where is another God like you,
    who pardons the guilt of the remnant,
    overlooking the sins of his special people?
You will not stay angry with your people forever,
    because you delight in showing unfailing love.
¹⁹ Once again you will have compassion on us.
    You will trample our sins under your feet
    and throw them into the depths of the ocean!

Micah 7:18-19

New Living Translation (NLT)

Knots in the string

"Some rabbis say that, at birth, we are each tied to God with a string, and that every time we sin, the string breaks. To those who repent of their sin, especially in the days of Rosh Hashanah, God sends the angel Gabriel to make knots in the string, so that the humble and contrite are once again tied to God. Because each one of us fail, because we all lose our way on the path to righteousness from time to time, our strings are full of knots. But, the rabbis like to say, a string with many knots is shorter than one without knots. So the person with many sins but a humble heart is closer to God."

A Year of Biblical Womanhood - Rachel Held Evans

Remember how the Lord your God led you all the way in the wilderness these forty years, to humble and test you in order to know what was in your heart, whether or not you would keep his commands.

Deuteronomy 8:2

I am certain my string is quite a sight.

Short, knobby, full of knots, one over another, a real mess, just like my life has been.

But at the same time I must agree.

When I have had to humble myself, admit to God and myself that I was wrong and ask for forgives for all that I have done, it has brought me so much closer to God.

Because your heart was responsive and you humbled yourself before the Lord when you heard what I have spoken against this place and its people—that they would become a curse and be laid waste—and because you tore your robes and wept in my presence, I also have heard you, declares the Lord.

2 Kings 22:19

It has not been the sin.

The sin broke the cord, frayed the string and made me unconnect from God.

It was the humble heart.

I can only be close to God if my heart is humble, if I'm small and God is great, if I admit that I do not matter, only God matters.

And in disappearing myself in the emerging God, I will be myself truly and I will truly matter, to the only person who matters.

Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.

Matthew 11:29

So, it doesn't matter what mess I have made of my string.

What matters is that it is shorter every day.

Every day God burns something useless from me.

Every day I'll be closer to Him.