ERROR

Ben H. Swett
Temple Hills, MD
May 1976

What would you do if you received this message, not once, but several times in the same week, from someone you believed to be speaking for God?

You have been tried in the scales and found wanting.

First I tried to ignore it, but when it kept repeating, I bounced off all the walls, mentally and emotionally, if not physically.

I tried to find some reason to think I was dropping off channel. I wanted to believe this message did not come from a good source. I tried to reject the source as a liar, but that didn't work because this particular voice has proved trustworthy far too often. And besides, I suspected the message might well be true.

After that I felt sorry for myself. If God had decided to drop me, it wasn't my fault. I tried. I wanted to be good. I just didn't make it. Poor me.

Then I went over a long list of reasons why God might decide to drop me, but that wasn't much fun, so I went back to feeling sorry for myself.

On and on, around and around, I thrashed over the implications of those ten terrible words for the next two weeks. Finally, the message of doom came again, while I was trying to work on something else, and I asked the question I should have asked in the first place: "Okay, what do you mean by that?"

The answer was prompt. It was a mental motion-picture of a newborn baby being lifted in gentle hands, placed in a soft blanket on a baby-scales, and found to need extra care, additional nourishment, special attention, life support ...

I wept at the realization of how terribly I had misjudged my God.


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