She Loves - Series Day 4: I'm Loved at My Darkest

Romans 5:8 - But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. [NIV]

That's today's verse from the list.

Yes, it's pretty cut and dry, I think, in clearly defining exactly how much God loves us. Those of us who grew up hearing the gospel might not find gravity in this every time we see it, because we've seen it so much. We have busy lives, responsibilities and distractions pulling us in different directions all the time. We understand this to be an absolute truth; in my case, when I need that extra push in the right direction, I usually set off to find a verse more specifically targeted for whatever challenge I'm trying to muddle my way through.

Discouragement, loss, impatience, betrayal, injury, sickness, death, etc. I don't like any of those words. There are verses that speak about all those things throughout the Bible, so when I'm facing those things, that's where I go. I don't go to this verse automatically, but the irony is that it's one of the first things I should remember, in my moments of anger, sadness and guilt. Yes, I probably do need that memo about patience [or 3, or 5, or yenno, maybe 1 an hour sometimes?!]...

In case that's you, too, here are some freebies [NIV]:

* Better a patient person than a warrior, one with self-control than one who takes a city. - Proverbs 16:32

* Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. - Galatians 6:9

* May the God who gives endurance and encouragement give you the same attitude of mind toward each other that Christ Jesus had. - Romans 15:5

^^ That last one's a real doozy for me to swallow down sometimes, especially if the source of my perceived frustration is another human. Be Christlike to that guy?! - Yes.

Am I forgetting that I am guilty of causing some of these things to other people, also? I may have done so intentionally in the past, or unintentionally, and with the exception of death [aka murder, in this context], I can say I've been guilty of almost all of those I listed, and probably some others that I didn't. They're the same things that I as a mother teach my daughter not to do, not just because they're wrong, but because they are far from the way God calls us to live.

And so why would I have reason to think that a reminder of God - a father, sent his ONLY son, to become a martyr for the sake of the entire human race, right smack dab in the middle of us all acting like petulant children towards each other and ourselves. Certainly not one of our finer moments, and clearly not our last, and yet there He was, the only sinless one among us, martyred so that we could find the type of love and eternal life we ab.so.lutely didn't then and never will deserve.

So I'm impatient?

Self, you've made someone else wait for something before, too. 

I've been betrayed? 

Girl..... you've maybe been unintentional, but you've done it, too. 

Someone stole something from me? 

You were young and super dumb once, too. 

Someone physically injured me? 

What about the time YOU wrecked a car and sent yourself & 2 others to the hospital? 

Or those times in soccer that you put a player on the ground?

I've been lied to. 

Yikes. We get it. 

DESPITE aaaall those things, I am the reason that a parent sent his only child to die a gruesome, public death on a wooden cross. He loved me enough to transfer the consequence of sin [death] to His son, so that I could have life in return. That I could find redemption. Salvation. That I could be saved. I, along with the rest of us, am stumbling around blindly half the time, or in my less-savvy moments, literally drowning, because I chose to put a bag over my head or tie my arms to my side before jumping off the dock. I am the reason I deserve what He gives: forgiveness, and a chance every. single. day to start new and let love in.

So, tomorrow me, take a good look at this when that time comes and you're off pouting about whatever it is that's gotten under your skin, and remember that Christ died for you, because and in spite of the fact that you're a hot mess.

And that's awesome.

xo | cmd