Tuesday, February 12, 2002

Just Pondering

I was amazed this weekend with the unbelievable, incomprehensible amount of shapes. Billions of rocks and mountains and bushes and clouds. It never ceases to amaze me how artistic God is. It is so funny that we have the gall to call art man-made. Every form of art that has ever existed is just a re-creation of what has already been created. It is just an attempt to find identity in God (the creator)! He has already done it!!! The repetitive patterns, the shapes, the interrelation between the two, the colors, the artistic creation in art we try to re-create the components, in music we simply mimic the sounds and order we’ve already heard. It has already been done! Thank god that we get to participate in art! What grace God has bestowed upon us.

Things are really not a whole lot “better”, but for some reason the Lord has plugged me into the “Life” that he offers through salvation. It amazes me that in the massive amounts of scripture on salvation, he very rarely mentions the forgiveness of sins. As a matter of fact when He does mention forgiveness of sins it is in relation to those who have not yet received the gift. Almost every time we read about salvation the reference is to LIFE! You know, that is totally unrelated to MOST messages and teaching I’ve heard about salvation.

Well, I really began to wonder about this LIFE thing. Why are we not familiar with the concept of LIFE? As a matter of fact, the gift of God is not death... the gift we receive at salvation is not the death of Christ... it is the Life of Christ. Death was only a means to free us from the death of sin in our life. It was a means to an end. The true gift is life. What kind of life? Life eternal... sure. But, I also read over and over that the life is also a life in the here and now.

Well, the struggle that I have come across is the fact that when I find LIFE, it seems to create this great chasm and struggle that seems to cause more trouble than it seems to be worth. When I find life, death seems to rear it’s ugly head. Temptation is fierce, relationships are tough and life generally stinks.

Well, I had a chance to spend some time in Arches National Park this weekend and as is usually the case, God had a chance to speak louder than the little things that normally drown him out. I found that, you know what..., the life of Christ is totally separate from the little struggles that go on day by day. As a matter of fact, I can find the LIFE of Christ in those rambunctious struggles. I climbed a couple of peaks this weekend and I noticed something that I had never noticed. I am usually so engrossed in the view at the top fo the mountain that I miss what’s under my feet... the rocks. I found out that there are rocks at the top of the mountain just like the rocks at the bottom. I found that the rocks look the same, smell the same, feel the same and even hurt the same when you stump your toe. Why have I always missed them? Because I was so overwhelmed and impressed with the view. In other words, I kept my eyes on Jesus! Wow!! God, help me to keep my eyes on Jesus. You know, if I could just learn to do that, the massive amounts of little “stuff” will seem almost non-existent. Does that mean it will not hurt when you stump your toe, of course not, but it does mean there will be something bigger and better to pull you through.

Thanks God!

No comments: