So Do Dogs Go to Heaven?

When my granddaughter's religion class was told that dogs would not go to heaven because they have no souls, I thought to myself, "A love this pure cannot but be eternal.  Surely, the love of a dog for its master and of the master for the dog must continue beyond this life."  But never did I dream that I would read a treatise on this subject from a spiritual writer. 

Many times in my life have I encountered God's sense of humor -- and surely, this is one of those times.  How else to explain that within a week of the religion class episode, I would download and begin to read The Hope of the Gospel by George MacDonald, a writer I have thought about for years without actually reading?

Here are some of MacDonald's thoughts on the subject:

The teachers of the nation have unwittingly, it seems to me through unbelief, wronged the animals deeply by their silence anent the thoughtless poplar presumption that they have no hereafter; thus leaving them deprived of a great advantage to their position among men.  But I suppose they too have taken it for granted that the Preserver of man and beast never had a thought of keeping one beast alive beyond a certain time; in which case heartless men might well argue he did not care how they wronged them, for he meant them no redress.  Their immortality is no new faith with me, but as old as my childhood.

Do you believe in immortality for yourself?  I would ask any reader who is not in sympathy with my hope for the animals.  If not, I have no argument with you.  But if you do, why not believe in it for them....if the thought be anywise precious to you, is it essential to your enjoyment in it, that nothing less than yourself should share its realization?  Are you the lowest kind of creature that could be permitted to live?....Are these not worth making immortal?  How, then, were they worth calling out of the depth of no-being?  It is a greater deed, to make be that which was not, than to seal it with an infinite immortality.....What He thought worth making, you think not worth continuing made!  You would have him go on forever creating new things with one hand, and annihilating those he had made with the other -- for I presume you would not prefer the earth to be without animals!....then his creatures were no better than the toys which a child makes, and destroys as he makes them.  For what good, for what divine purpose, is the maker of the sparrow present at its death, if he does not care what becomes of it?  What is he there for, I repeat, if he have no care that it go well with his bird in its dying, that it be neither comfortless nor lost in the abyss?....Believe it is not by a little only that the heart of the universe is tenderer, more loving, more just and fair, than yours or mine.

I know of no reason why I should not look for the animals to rise again, in the same sense in which I hope myself to rise again ---which is, to reappear, clothed with another and better form of life than before.  If the Father will raise his children, why should he not also raise those whom he has taught his little ones to love?  Love is the one bond of the universe, the heart of God, the life of his children; if animals can be loved, they are loveable; if they can love, they are yet more plainly loveable: love is eternal; how then should its object perish?...Must the love live on forever without its object? or worse still, must the love die with its object, and be eternal no more than it?

Can you imagine that, if, here-after, one of God's little ones were to ask Him to give again one of the earth's old loves ---kitten, or pony, or squirrel, or dog, which he had taken from him, the Father would say no?  .... What a child may ask for, the Father will keep ready.

MacDonald's reflections go on for pages and pages, and of course they are recommended reading to anyone who has enjoyed this excerpt.  As I read these words, I could not help but recall the words of Jesus that the Queen of Sheba would rise up in the hereafter to condemn those of the present generation who did not recognize that one "greater than Solomon" was among them.  Or His parable about the after-life conversation of Lazarus and Dives, with Dives begging Lazarus to bring him one drop of water to cool his burning tongue.  I wonder if at the Resurrection, all the abused animals will rise up to condemn their abusers, or if the abusers will be begging mercy from those they chained up without food or water until death.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

All of creation is waiting with eager expectation for the revelation of the sons of God....with the hope that the universe itself is to be freed from the shackles of mortality and is to enter upon the glorious liberty of the children of God.  Up until the present, as we know, the whole created universe in all its parts groans as if in the pangs of childbirth (Rom. 8).

 

Last night's news and this morning's paper revealed the existence of two puppy mills in Alcorn County, MS.  The puppies were being sold at flea markets in Tupelo and elsewhere, but the conditions of their captivity were deplorable.  171 animals were rescued (123 dogs plus pigs, donkeys, goats, cats, bunnies, chickens, roosters, and ducks).  Most of the dogs had dental, eye, ear, and skin problems; they were crowded into dirty metal cages with wire bottoms.  The feces stuck to the cages caused sores on the paws and legs of the dogs; maggots indicated that the cages were never cleaned.

 

Unfortunately, this is but one example of "all creation groaning in anticipation of the revelation of the sons of God."  We can rescue these animals, but what about all those we do not see?  What about the abused and neglected children who are not rescued and loved?

 

The puppies rescued yesterday were called "prisoners of greed" by the media.  Those who do not acknowledge God as creator of the universe and all that is in it will control, manipulate, extort all of creation to their own selfish ends.  Sometimes I am tempted to think that they should be treated the same as they have treated their own children and animals.

 

There are those who in their blindness think that animals have no souls, if they think at all.  How else could they inflict such misery, pain, grief on these creatures?  St. Francis took literally the words of the Gospel, "Go into the whole world and preach the good news to every creature!"  He was known to preach to the sun and the moon, to fire and water, to birds and to wolves.  In his simplicity, he believed and received into his soul the words that all creation was groaning for deliverance -- and in his joy, he wanted to set free the captives!

 

Adam was given dominion over the earth -- with the provision that he continued to walk with God, to receive wisdom and understanding from the Creator of heaven and earth.  When Adam pulled away from God, seeking instead reliance on his own wisdom and knowledge, the earth began to deteriorate and "groan" with the pangs of childbirth, eagerly awaiting the deliverance of the "sons of God."

 

When Paul says "All creation," he comprises all creatures capable of suffering, but even the earth itself -- the soil, the ground, the rocks, the hills, the grasses and meadows--- "suffer" when man loses his spiritual connection to the Creator.  That is why the ground produced thorns and thistles, and why Adam would eat his bread by the sweat of his brow.  The Hebrew words "Adam" and 'adamah" indicate "man" and "ground, earth, soil."  What happens to man spiritually is echoed in the ground by which we live.

 

Scripture tells us that the groaning itself is the first movement of the hampered thing (i.e. "the prisoners of greed") toward the liberty of another birth.  Fortunately, the "sons of God" found and rescued 171 creatures yesterday from their life of poverty and suffering.  Hopefully, by the kindness of strangers, they will have no further cause for "groaning" in this life.

 

Along these lines, hear the words of George MacDonald in The Hope of the Gospel:

 

To believe that God made many of the lower creatures merely for prey, or to be the slaves of a slave, and writhe under the tyrannies of a cruel master who will not serve his own master; that he created and is creating an endless succession of them to reap little or no good of life but its cessation ---a doctrine held by some, and practically accepted by multitudes---is to believe in a God who, so far as one portion at least of his creation is concerned, is a demon....and were such a creator possible, he would not be God, but must one day be found and destroyed by the real God.

 

Blessed be the name of the Father of Jesus, there is no such creator!

 

...But what of those which live and suffer?  Is there no comfort concerning them, but that they too at length shall die and leave their misery?  Will the consolation that they shall soon die suffice for the heart of the child who laments over his dead bird or rabbit?  Would those people have me believe in a God who differentiates creatures from himself, only that they may be the prey of other creatures, or spend a few hours or years, helpless and lonely, speechless and without appeal, in merciless hands, then pass away into nothingness?  I will not; in the name of Jesus, I will not.  Had He not known something better, would He have said what He did about the Father of men and the sparrows?

 

There is so much more to MacDonald's treatise that it will have to await another day.  Suffice it for now to say that, after my grandchild was told that dogs don't go to heaven because they don't have souls, and because my heart was grieved at this "doctrine," though I could not adequately explain why, my heart leaped for joy at discovering MacDonald's explanation of creation having an afterlife.  More tomorrow, God willing!

Sit, Walk, and Stand

I have always loved the Book of Ephesians.  I think that was the first book of the Bible ever to "come alive" to me when I first read it.  But many years later, when I read Watchman Nee's Sit, Walk, and Stand,  I finally began to understand the Book as a whole, rather than just a compilation of beautiful ideas.  When we step back from the individual words and sentences to view the pattern outlined in Ephesians, we discover the pattern of the Christian life -- and once we see the pattern, we can begin to trace it in every book of the Bible. 

The first three chapters of Ephesians can be grouped under Nee's title "SIT."  Unless we have experienced what St. Peter calls "being delivered out of darkness into his glorious kingdom," we may not truly appreciate the depth of these chapters.  However, if we think of the Israelites enslaved in Egypt for 400 years, and knowing nothing but that way of life until the arrival of Moses to deliver them, we can get some glimpse of the spiritual darkness out of which we ourselves are delivered.

If we think of nations such as North Korea, of ISIS, of the brutal dictatorships of Sadam Hussein and Idi Amin, for example, we can see in front of our eyes what spiritual darkness looks like.  If we think of abused children, abandoned wives, Ponzi schemes, and other forms of evil, we can see and agonize over the kinds of darkness that men must endure from those who love the darkness rather than the light (see John 1).

But God in His love and mercy has delivered us out of darkness and "has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in Christ" (Eph. 1:3).  The first 3 chapters tell us what God has done for us, not as a reward for good behavior, but before we could even think or choose the good:  He chose us; He lavished on us...with all wisdom and understanding; He made known to us....He called us....He gave us hope....He expressed His kindness to us in Jesus Christ....He strengthened us with power through His holy Spirit in our inner being, so that Christ may dwell in our hearts through faith.

Because of the "lavish richness" which God has already poured out on us, because of what He has given us before we knew enough to choose, Paul urges us in Chapters 4,5, and part of 6 to "live a life worthy of the calling you have received."  This is the "WALK" section of the letter.  In these chapters, we are given concrete and specific instructions of what it means to "walk" as children of God:  Be humble and gentle...be patient...put off falsehood and speak truthfully...in your anger, do not sin...do not grieve the Holy Spirit....get rid of all bitterness, rage, and anger....be kind and compassionate to one another. 

These directives are given to us as ways to allow the Light of Christ to shine through the Body of Christ on earth.  Because He is Light, we are to "walk in the Light" we have been given through Him.  But sometimes, all we can do is not enough to overcome the works of darkness all around us.  We are still living in a world that will not allow the Light of Christ to overcome its evil.  When we have done all that we can do, when we have reached the limits of our own power to withstand "...the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms," we are urged to STAND.  We are to put on the armor of God and to "be strong in His mighty power." 

As the Israelites STOOD at the edge of the Red Sea, pursued without mercy by Pharoah and his army, they had done all they could do ---BUT GOD..... had another plan.  He opened the sea before them, and they crossed over dry-shod.  When we stand before the powers of evil, of sickness, of oppression, of things over which we have no control, there is still one thing more we can do:  we can put on the mighty armor of God --- the helmet of salvation, the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, the shoes of peace, the shield of faith, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

If we begin to think of the Christian life in these terms: Sit, Walk, and Stand, we have an entirely different and manageable perspective.  We cannot minister to others until we have received the outpoured blessings of God's ministry to us -- but once we have received all abundance from God, who "gives generously, without finding fault," we are strengthened to walk in the fullness we have received, and finally, to stand against the evil powers of this present age. 

The Hope of the Beatitudes

Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted (Matt. 5:4)

 

"Blessed are they that mourn."?  This goes beyond all common sense.  Who can be glad of grief?  But Jesus seems to say that mourning breaks down the partition-wall between man and God; He congratulates those that mourn, for the light of God's comfort can break through into the grieving soul.

 

Mourning is not good in itself, of course, as is love, but it will open the door of the heart for good to enter in.  Jesus came in the flesh to share in our sorrow; He was not satisfied to watch from above as we groveled on earth in our sorrows.  He had to come near, to hold our hand, to embrace our human flesh, to give His comfort. 

 

Man was not made for sorrow; he was made for peace and joy, but still, sorrow enters in -- that is the human condition.  So the question is, "What then?"  Now that grief IS in our lives, what do we do now?  Do we cope the best we can, condemned to bury the grief in our souls and go on about our daily lives?  Are we to live in the state of sorrow until we die?

 

George MacDonald in The Hope of the Gospel says this:  There are two gate-keepers to the house of prayer, and Sorrow is more on the alert to open than her grandson Joy.  The gladsome child runs further afield; the wounded child turns to go home....in his sorrow, man leaves his heavenward door on the latch, and God can enter to help him...Grief is an ill-favored thing, but she is Love's own child, and her mother loves her.

 

We mourn because we love, and we miss what we loved and do not presently have.  When I read Man's Search for Meaning at the age of 19, it changed my life.  Viktor Frankl teaches his patients to be thankful that something was so wonderful that we can grieve its loss.  Up to that point, I had always feared losing the "wonderfulness" of the past and of the present; I did not want to grow older because that meant leaving behind the present, which I loved so much.  But reading Frankl taught me gladness of heart for the good things of my life.

 

But love damaged by wrong produces anger rather than gratitude.  Love invaded by loss is grief.  We always grieve the loss of those we love, ordinarily in death.  But there are losses greater than those of death, and harder to find comfort for.  We grieve the loss of friends, of children still alive, those who are beyond the reach of our tears.  The Prodigal Father, whose son was in a foreign country, wasting his life and his substance, is more to be pitied than the father whose son was lost in war.  The mother who realizes that she has lost the opportunity to love her children while they were still young because she was too busy to pay attention then is to be pitied as much as the one who has lost her child in death.

 

Would Jesus Christ, Who is the Truth, call someone blessed just because "time heals all wounds"?   Would he say we are Blessed because the pain of our grief subsides with time?  Would such comfort be enough for the heart of Jesus to give?  Blessed  is a strong word, and in the mouth of Jesus, it means all it can mean.  Can He mean less than "Blessed are they that mourn, for they shall be comforted with a joy worth the pain of the sorrow they experience"?

 

Surely He means that the grief we feel is clearing the way for a greater comfort.  God's comfort must be greater than man's grief, or else there are gaps in His Godhood.

 

Many people have such a low expectation of the next life that they do not even expect to know their friends there; they think they will not recognize old friends and lovers in the next life.  They believe that Jesus can save them from sin, but the part of us that loves will be lost forever!  They believe that the chaos of this world is the final answer-- that our losses will be greater than our gains in this life.  What kind of person is unable to believe that God loves every throb of every human heart towards another?  That He will restore to us what was lost?  Did not Jesus die to destroy death, sorrow, and enmity, so that we could be one with Him and with the Father and with one another?

 

Were our loves created only to become dear to us and then to be destroyed?  Is it wine only that grows better with age?  A heaven without our human loves is not to be desired.  We are to love one another as God has loved us -- and His love does not wear out or grow thin with age.  To annihilate our past loves, to confess that they are forever lost, is to crush the idea that we ourselves can love as God loves.

 

We will not all die, but we will all be changed.  What is unlovable in us will certainly be changed to bring us closer to one another.  We will all become closer to the ideal self, the germ of our true selves.  If we can love one another in our imperfections, we will certainly love one another when we have been changed into the glory for which we were intended---the self which God intended to send into the world, before we were damaged by evil.

 

We shall be comforted when we behold our loved ones with the damage gone -- the things that did not truly belong to them gone, and what is essential to the person shining forth, wholly developed.

 

Our sorrow is a wind blowing through our lives, to winnow and cleanse what separates us from one another.  The Lord has come to heal the broken-hearted; shall not THE Father do His best to seek and to find what was lost?  Will not The Good Shepherd go after the lost sheep?  Would God's restitution not give us the opportunity to ask forgiveness for the grief we have caused others and confessing our shame for the past?  Will not our hearts speak to one another words that can be conveyed with a glance?  Because of our love's defect, we suffer now that selfishness may be taken out of it--burned out by our pain.  Our sorrow disentangles our selfishness from our loves.

 

What God will do for us, only He knows, but one thing is clear:  The Father is Father FOR His children, or else why make Himself their Father?  Our worst enemy is our own unreclaimed self -- he will always bring us to sorrow.  But the Lord knows how to reclaim us and make us fit for His kingdom.  And not only ourselves, but those we have loved and lost.  He is getting us ready even now to experience the comfort and the joy of reunion with those we love.  We must allow Him to do His work in our souls!

 

 



Thy Kingdom Come

The disciples, watching Jesus in prayer, asked Him to teach them how to pray, so we know that what He taught was what He did.  He prayed, "Thy kingdom come....."

Why is it incumbent upon mankind to pray "Thy kingdom come," when God is in charge of the heavens and the earth?  He can do whatever He chooses to do; He is more than capable of establishing His kingdom on earth, just as it in in heaven -- where there is no pain, no sorrow, where He has "wiped away every tear," and given peace to all who trust Him. 

The truth is that God has given us dominion over the earth; the earth will exist just the way man desires it to exist, because God will not override our freedom to choose nor the desires of our hearts.  Whatever happens to man in the realm of the spirit is exactly what will be reflected on earth -- in the soil, in the air, in the water.  Our earth will prosper or it will die depending on our spiritual condition.

Man is in charge, but he is not in control, of the earth.  William Barry once wrote, "Man always thinks he can release a few demons into the world and then control them."  The movie Jurassic Park is a graphic reminder of man's hubris; we think we can release forces of our own devising without having them threaten our very existence.

Without God's Holy Spirit residing in us, guiding us into all Truth, man has knowledge, but not wisdom, for wisdom is given only from above.  We were never meant to "go it alone," without the Holy Spirit, without God's dominion and inspiration, but man from the beginning has determined "to be as gods." 

Yesterday, for some strange reason, I was trying to open a box with only one hand.  Who knows why I would do something like that?  Perhaps I had a cup of coffee in the other hand and did not want to set it down; perhaps I thought I was "good enough," "strong enough," "smart enough" to manage the task with only one hand.  Foolish woman!  Finally, I said to myself, "I have two hands here; why am I trying to do this with only one hand?"  And then I realized that this is exactly mankind's dilemma.

We were designed to operated fully and wisely to govern the earth with the spirit-part of us operational, in communion with the Breath of God, the Ruah, the Holy Spirit.  But man is always determined to try it first on his own strength, with his own knowledge and experience, before he finally realizes his inability to govern the earth without the Wisdom given from above. 

When we pray "Thy kingdom come," we are freely and openly inviting the Holy Spirit into our domain, into the area of our rule and influence.  This is "my" property; it was given to me by God Himself---and He will not cross the threshold until I invite Him to do so.  He respects my property and my domain; He enters only when invited.  Jesus says, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock; if anyone will open to me, I will come in and sup with him, and he with Me" (Rev. 3:20).  If we do not open the door, He will not enter, and since only He can establish the kingdom of God, since the kingdom resides in Him and for Him and with Him, we cannot have God's rule on earth unless we freely and joyfully open our doors to Jesus Christ.

Whenever my own mother would come to visit me, she always stood at the door and knocked or rang the bell.  She would not enter until I opened the door for her, even though she knew she was welcome to come in at any time.  She and my father, along with my husband's mother and father, had lent us money to buy the house in which we lived, had given us the education to earn a living to pay for the house, had helped us out in a thousand ways getting established.  And yet, none of them considered it their privilege to walk into our house without being invited.  So too is the gentleness and courtesy of our God.  He will come in, He will bring His kingdom -- His power and presence -- ONLY at our invitation.  He will not overrule our freedom to choose whose kingdom, which kingdom, will reign in our homes, in our businesses, on our property. 

If we do not pray "Thy kingdom come," it will not come, and we will live with the consequences of our own choices in this country, in our homes, and on the earth.

World of Darkness/World of Light

If we were to take a sheet of poster paper and draw a line down the center.....
If on one side of the line, we wrote:  World of Darkness, and on the other side, we wrote, World of Light....

and then, if we were to list all the words we could think of that convey "Darkness," we might come up with something like this:  chaos, confusion, horror, terror, fear, abyss, separation, isolation, loneliness, depression, anger, division, revenge, hatred, rage, unforgiveness, lack of understanding, poverty, pain, suffering, death, etc....

Then, if we changed the word "World" to "works" (of Darkness), we could list alongside our nouns some of the actions, or things people do, which create "World" of Darkness, things we live with every day and talk about every day as we see the darkness taking over the world we know:  beheading, killing, cutting off of peoples for whatever reason --differences of belief, of color, of gender, of age -- anyone who threatens our own identity.  On another level, we see hard-heartedness toward those who are excluded from acceptable society -- the sick, the homeless, the elderly, the helpless, the infant in the womb, etc.  We see gossip, angry words and actions, killings on the streets, gang warfare, robbery, drunkenness, drugs destroying lives, corporations and governments squeezing the last farthing from those who are barely surviving, etc.

If we then turn to the World of Light and listed all the synonyms that convey "Light," we might come up with another kind of list:  life, goodness, peace, acceptance, patience, understanding, joy, celebration, freedom, truth, love, etc.  And then, if we changed "World" to "works," we might look around us and list what we see all around us, as Jesus said, "the lame walk, the blind see, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, and good news is preached to the poor" (Luke 7).  Walk into any hospital today and observe dedicated doctors and nurses and health-care workers putting aside their own comfort and ease, exhausting themselves to heal the sick, to comfort the sorrowing, to work together as a team for the good of all those who enter the doors.  Go into any inner city and see in the midst of squalor those who are caring for abandoned children, feeding the hungry, cleaning up the alcoholics and druggies, and providing safe shelter for those trapped in sex-trading.  Go into any school and watch teachers and aides who are struggling to overcome neglect of children, the effects of poverty and ignorance, to give children a sense of self-worth and accomplishment.  Behold at the World--and the works--- of Light all around us!

Our choice today is identical to the one Moses gave the Israelites before they entered the Land of Promise:  I set before you today Life and Death -- choose Life!  We see the world of darkness closing in on us, the way of Death, and it threatens daily the World of Light, of Goodness, of Peace, of Joy.  We no longer have the choice to be neutral, to do nothing, to wait and hope the disaster will pass us by.  If we do not actively choose the world of Light, of Good, then we by default will have chosen the Way of Death.

The Impossible Christian LIfe

...the only way to keep life uncrushed is to live looking to God (Oswald Chambers: My Utmost for His Highest).

 

It seems to be characteristic of human nature to begin by thinking we will conquer the world.  As teens, we think ourselves invincible -- nothing will happen to us that we can't handle.  We experiment with alcohol, cigarettes, sex, and even drugs, because we are convinced that we are in control of ourselves and of our lives.  "Nothing can hurt us; we are 'as gods'."  It does not take very long to discover that we are not the immortal and invulnerable creatures we imagined ourselves to be.  Very soon, we are trapped, enslaved, by the very things we thought we could handle ourselves.  We are enslaved, beaten down, crushed by the life we thought we had on a string.  We are not as "in control" as we imagined. 

 

At this point, there are only two ways out of the morass, as Moses tells the Israelites in the book of Deuteronomy:  choose life or choose death.  We can look to God and live, or refuse to look to Him and choose continuing death, depression, enslavement to the things that bind us. 

 

Jesus Calling for Oct. 7 reads in part:  Let me free you from fear that is hiding deep inside you.  Sit quietly in My Presence, allowing My Light to soak into you and drive out any darkness lodged within you.

 

Just as creation began with the light penetrating the darkness and ordering the universe, balancing the seas with the dry land and the harmony of the spheres, so our Christian Life begins with the Light of Christ shining in the dark places and the chaos of our lives.  If we do not allow the Light to shine within, we remain in darkness and slavery to forces that are stronger than we are.  St. Paul says, "If I do the things I do not want to do, it proves that sin within me is stronger than I am" (Romans 7).  "But, fortunately, the Law of the Spirit of Life within me has overcome the law of death within my members" (Romans 8).

 

So many people imagine that the Christian life consists of obeying the law, of us overcoming sin by our own efforts.  Self-control might work for a little while, but it cannot work in us the "impossible Christian life" demanded by Christ:

 

Be perfect, as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Be holy, because I am holy.

Do good to those who despise and mistreat you...forgive your enemies...

Be poor in spirit....

Become as little children, or you shall not enter the kingdom of heaven.

 

If we do not know we are "poor and blind and naked," (Rev. 3), we will attempt to live the Christian life on our own power, once again believing that we "shall be as gods," conquering the spiritual world by our own efforts.  But the Christian life comes to us as a gift, not as a reward:  You must be born again of water and the Holy Spirit, or you cannot even see the kingdom of God;

 

I baptize you with water, but One comes after me who will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire;

 

Ask and you will receive.....knock and the door will be opened....seek and you will find....for the Father knows how to give the Holy Spirit to those who ask.

 

If you knew the Gift of God, you would have asked, and I would give you water springing up to eternal life.

 

....the one who believes in Me, out of his belly shall flow streams of water.

 

The Good News and the bad news are one and the same:  we are unable to live the Christian Life, just as we are unable to live the natural life without being crushed by it -- except for the grace, the power, and the continuing presence of God in our lives.  Redemption does not mean that we have never sinned; it means that we have been picked up and restored to joy by the grace of God.  We can do nothing of ourselves, but we can receive everything we need for life and holiness from His hands, as St. Peter tells us.  Thanks be to God, we are no longer on our own, either in this life or in the Christian life.  He gives generously to all who ask and who will receive the Gift of Life in Christ Jesus.