Having officiated at weddings for many years now, I do feel for President Obama and Chief Justice Roberts in their struggles with the oath of office at Tuesday's inauguration. I know that a nervous bride or groom have great difficulty repeating vows. My policy is to only give them three or four words at a time to repeat (and back up to one or two words in some situations of nervousness). Repeating the presidential oath of office must surely inspire a case of nerves nearing the level of a new bride and groom.
The news story today reads, "WASHINGTON – After the flub heard around the world, President Barack Obama has taken the oath of office. Again. Chief Justice John Roberts delivered the oath to Obama on Wednesday night at the White House — a rare do-over. The surprise moment came in response to Tuesday's much-noticed stumble, when Roberts got the words of the oath a little off, which prompted Obama to do so, too. Don't worry, the White House says: Obama has still been president since noon on Inauguration Day. Nevertheless, Obama and Roberts went through the drill again out of what White House counsel Greg Craig called "an abundance of caution."
Sometimes it's nice to have a chance to start over, to start fresh, to begin again. Through relationship to Jesus we have just such an opportunity. We have multiple opportunities all along the way in life. The only problem is we don't "do the do-over."
President Obama didn't have to take the oath of office again. He had plenty of other things he needed to do yesterday in his first working day as President of the United States. He could have said, "It will all work out." He could have leaned on pride and said, "I'm going to just pretend the flubs didn't happen." He could have said, "I have other things I need to attend to of greater importance just now." He stopped and backed up and got it right (though I do wish he had done it with his hand on the Bible the second time as well).
What do you need to "get right" today...with your friends, your family, your spouse, your past, your present, your future, your God? You can put it off because you are taking care of more pressing matters; too proud to admit there is a problem that needs addressing; or maybe you just think it will somehow work out on its own.
What do you need to "get right" today? What's stopping you? What will you do about it?
I have been praying and contemplating on your upcoming sermon series, "One Month To Live" and your blog post seems to hit that head on! One of the things that God has been showing me is that, in my life there are several "small things" that need to be fixed with "do-overs" before I can get to the real answer to the question of what I would do if I had one month to live! It is amazing how easy it is to be disingenuous and dishonest with ourselves when it comes to what we know is roght for our lives!
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