Nature of God

.Well, I was unable to connect with my phone-based PASG tonight (remember that I live a long way from a PASG). As such, I was tempted to just use the time for my own pursuits. Instead, I read through the chapter we would have done, as well as read some in Clean Hands, Pure Heart. I am still in Chapter Two: Undoing the Lies About God. In there he quotes from the page 35 of Lectures on Faith. The expositions on the nature of God go as follows:

First, that He was God before the world was created, and the same God that He was after it was created.
Secondly, that he is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, abundant in goodness, and that He was so from everlasting and will be to everlasting.
Thirdly, that he changes not, neither is there variableness with Him; but that He is the same from everlasting to everlasting, being the same yesterday, today, and forever; and that His course is one eternal round, without variation.
Fourthly, that He is a God of truth and cannot lie.
Fifthly that He is no respecter of persons; but in every nation he that fears Go and works righteousness is accepted of Him.
Sixthly, that He is love.

Philip A. Harrison then goes to expound on each of them and what this discovery meant to him. While reading it, the second one stood out to me. God is slow to anger. He wants to help me, not condemn me. I have actually known this in my head for a while, but I guess I have not let it sink into my heart. I have long accepted that God is merciful and wants me to overcome my problem, but that doesn't mean that he wants to hear from me when I am deep in the problem. I have felt that when using pornography, he doesn't want to hear from me. I don't want to make it sound like that feeling was extremely strong, just strong enough to make give me another excuse not to repent.

I have to remember, that just like Philip A. Harrison, or any other person that has recovered from the same, or similar addictions, God wants me to recover too. He would much rather have me confess to him (and my wife and bishop) thirty seconds after the act, then for me to let it fade into the past. In fact, having it further in the past does not make it any more pallatable to him. All it does is separate us for a greater amount of time.

Which does nobody any good.

~Sean~