Day 19 of Lent - in which Sheila runs out of words...

“My heart is composing a goodly matter; I speak of the verses which I have made concerning the King; my tongue is the pen of a ready writer.”

~Psalm 45:1

…this is me, in my think-tank…

It’s a crisp sunny Sunday, and I’ve overcome overwhelming odds to be here sipping coffee at the keyboard. You’ve overcome overwhelming odds, too, I want you to know. I don’t believe in chance. You’ve been brought here today, as have I.

On the way to church, I kept thinking about the fact that God has not been what has been against us.

He is for you.

He didn’t create humans reluctantly. God made because of who He is, and from who He is (a Being with unparalleled goodness, and overflowing creativity and insatiable desire to make). He was never a disinterested Maker. The Godhead were not without sheer bias towards us from the very beginning.

The generosity of Father, Son, and Spirit towards us did not flow out of some beige, tepid, half-hearted inclination. They weren’t sitting in heaven, amongst all that boring glory, and suddenly choosing to kick the cosmic can around, and so “here we are”.

No! There was an enemy, there was a Godhead, there was a story to be told, and the stakes were high. All the goodness of God made you and I, knowing we would need a costly redemption; and for that redemption to be real, there would have to be a designated Representative.

God knew that God Himself would become one of us. And His wholehearted goodness towards you was in it from before the beginning.

We do spend our life “as a tale that is told”. We’ve been included in the story God is telling, and that story is not one of a dying Christ “fixing” what an angry God hated about what He had made. Nor is the story one of an indistinct, all-inclusive “Fatherhood of God for a brotherhood of man”. Rather, the story is that of a dying Christ reclaiming our original design. He bought back the possibility of an affectionate relationship with us. It is the ongoing story of His creation, incomparably dear to Him from our first breath, all of nature as an object of delight, plunging itself into desperate ruin, and a relentless Living God who would not, and will not, allow His purpose for which He made us, to be denied.

His purpose (that we be with Him as beloved ones) caused Him to roar a lion-like “NO” to the very thought of our alienation from Him. Even though that alienation was by our own choosing. When we were faithless, He remained faithful.

And, can I tell you, there wasn’t a speck of hesitancy. The collective-yet-singular heart of God was never at odds with our original design. Far from it. He always knew that Genesis 1 would be a passionate rescue mission.

Let me tell you how that makes me feel. Let me tell you what it does for my heart to understand that any displeasure of the Godhead was aimed at all that would separate me from Him - that my original design, because of Christ, is still intact.

Well, I pretty much can’t. I start to run out of words.

But I keep trying. And you (hundreds of you!) keep reading.

Yay for blogs.

More coffee, please.