March 23rd 2016
4 But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, 5 made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved. – Ephesians 2:4-5 NIV
I was walking from my house into town, along route 42. It was overcast and clammy, everything covered in wetness. On my left, the decaying leaves in the berm revealed innumerable bottles, cans, coffee cups, plastic bags, and even an old shoe. Canvas with a ribbed rubber sole. Somebody ought to adopt this highway, I thought, in a tone laced with not a little righteous anger. Yes, even my thoughts can take on that “tone.”
When I got to Iola, it took a few minutes, as it always does, to place the rank odor wafting in from the creek. Sewer? Road kill? Oh yes, landfill. Pew! That smell means somebody up there isn’t doing something right! Somebody on the zoning board ought to get up there and figure out what code is being violated and hold the owners accountable. How disgraceful that our little borough is violated because humans can’t do a better job of taking care of our trash!
I was feeling madder by the minute.
Really, I am turning, year by year, into quite the bitter old hag.
Humans, in general terms, disgust me– their greed, their sloth, their arrogance and waste! Their disregard for creation is appalling and embarrassing.
…Let me pause here and apologize. Were you expecting a chirpy little valentine of a devotion? I’m sorry. But here is the gleaming nugget for those of you who thus far feel a little cheated by my gloomery:
God loves us anyway. How is this possible? The mess! The stench! It is incomprehensible. Yet, in Hillsong’s new song Touch the Sky, Taya Smith sings in gratitude and disbelief, “You traded Heaven to have me again.”
I cannot get my heart around it. I know in my head God loves humans, loves me. I know the Bible, the infallible Word of God, promises it. But, walking by all this foul debris, and drawing all the appropriate parallels to the foul debris in my heart, it’s hard to feel the truth of it. Which is exactly how Satan wants it. He hopes that such great grace seems irrational, inexplicable, undeserved, and finally unattainable. And the first three are true, but Satan is the king of deceit, and he’s hoping we believe the fourth word is true too.
We can’t let him win. If we hope at all to draw others in to a place where they can know the great saving grace and love of Christ, then we must first be there ourselves. For us, a King was sent to die. For us, perfect blood was shed. Of course we didn’t deserve it. Of course, it makes no sense. But, that is indeed the inscrutable nature of our God and creator.
My first sin this day was walking by each of these messes and hoping someone else would clean them up. I can and should do better than that. But my second sin, and a worse one, was imagining that my graceless contempt for humanity had anything to do with the views of my God.
– Tara Holdren