Concepts

There's a line in the Lord's prayer that I'm sure you're familiar with. "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven."

I'm embarrassed to admit that I was an adult when I finally realized that the verb in that line is not "will be done". Frankly, I'm not sure whether this comes from the confusion I have about words like "thy" or whether I was just so hung up on doing my will, that I didn't realize that there was any other kind of will. I remember the moment I figured that out, thinking, "Ohhhh, well that makes a little more sense!"

If that was the only time that had happened, I would probably just chalk it up as an embarrassing glitch. But I've come to realize there are other words and concepts that I don't fully grasp.

Like grace. To me, grace was what someone had if they weren't clumsy. Or it was someone's name. On some level, I knew it also had something to do with God - maybe it just means He's not clumsy? Despite being a fairly intelligent individual with a reasonably good vocabulary, I couldn't have defined it in the sense that it relates to God if my life depended on it.

Or take humility. There's a word that I thought I understood, but I came to find out my understanding, like so much of my life, was a few degrees off course. Or forgiveness. Sure I knew what the word meant, but I didn't really understand the nature of God's forgiveness. Certainly, I didn't know forgiveness.

In my journey as new Christian, I have come to a whole new understanding of these concepts and several more. If you're having trouble figuring out what these types of things mean, I hope that my writings will help you to gain newfound understanding and to grow in your personal spiritual journey.