The Blessing of Unconditional Acceptance

It seems strange to us that we are weak,

When love from others we do solemnly seek,

But the powers of acceptance and rejection are so,

That they make us, definitely, our own distant foe.

We hate it when we can’t find our way,

Into their hearts – and there to stay,

So best are we when we bear their wrong,

When we bear our weakness, then we’re strong!

***

It’s unfair that we seem to be affected by the partiality of people. As people, we accept some and yet we reject others – even as if we cannot help it. Yet we whistle at the dark far too much when we are actually destined for higher things; not for ourselves, but for others.

We are, at once, asked and even required, by God, to accept all persons, notwithstanding their state or status or even their infractions against us, or any we may love.

What seems a ridiculously tall order is the privilege of life in the Kingdom of the King of Kings. Once we recognise that God gives us the capacity to own our love for every single next person, and we see that such unconditional acceptance is a gift and not a hardship, we have no bitterness about needing to forgive. It is our fundamental pleasure to forgive, for what God is already giving back to us.

Casting Off Need for Acceptance Brings Tolerance for Rejection

What a fabulously paradoxical life: that, in God, we are given not simply the ability to not need to be accepted, but also the tolerance of understanding and forgiveness to grapple with rejection. Not one but both tools are given to us.

The heights of divine irony are reached when we determine it to be an honour to be lambasted again the poles of partiality, because we have God, and with God, we have all we need.

This is the blessing of unconditional acceptance. No further effort, nor burden, is experienced. None whatsoever – at least as it is possible.

When we have God, and we have understood without complaint that God – alone – is everything, we need nothing of human partiality: that ‘precious’ if not flattering sense of being favoured without ever knowing why.

***

Only with God have we the reason to forgive a person, so their wrong against us won’t affect our acceptance of them. When we bear our weakness, being truthful about its whereabouts, then we may be strengthened. Such a strength is required to be able to forgive.

© 2013 S. J. Wickham.