Tonight I went to a local Bible study not affiliated with any local church – just a random bunch of spiritual misfits, alienated from the church, yet more than ever desiring Jesus. I loved it. We hung out – I was the new guy and felt amazingly invited into the group. We opened the Book, read it together, and talked about it. We discussed the ins and outs of our prespectives, our hearts longing, our struggles, and our misunderstandings of God and our relationships with him. It was good stuff! The big issue that seems to “emerge” was one of our attitude as a Christ-follower – is it healthy to live out a posture of viewing oursleves as “scum” who constanly blow it and are so mcuh less than God intends or as a journeying people who, while far off the destination, are getting there regularly and can posture ourselves more as God’s redeemed (and still need to be redeemed) people. Basically do we take a negative attitude toward our lack of faithfulness and plentitude of failure or do we embrace God’s grace, do our best day after day, and embrace God’s continuing “revolution” in our lives? I was (and am) a proponent of a balance of both – a evaluative life of admission, confession, and then moving on mixed with a healthy dose of the confidence we receive when we embrace the grace of a loving and merciful God.