He's Still Working

I ate a meal I barely tasted and sipped on a cheap cup of coffee while she told me about her life. She just made the turn, she goes to church a lot now, she is really seeking after God. Like many I know, she is one lone survivor in a cosmic battle which has whipped through generations upon generations, wreckage passed along the line, worsened and complicated with each new layer.

I know that she has just crawled out of the wilderness like a soldier out of the jungle. My wilderness looked different than hers, but I still remember that feeling. In her world people are still screaming just behind her, mines are blowing up, chaos is everywhere, God save her from going back. She has found more than a temporary place to catch her breath – she has found her home at the mercy seat of Jesus, at the foot of the Cross.

So people talk to me. And I close my eyes, and I see their all of their junk, and I see all of my junk sitting next to their junk, and I see the mountains of everyone’s junk in the whole world.

And I see the Son of God nailed to the cross. I see the blood and the beating. I see us all, every one of us, spitting in the face of the goodness of God because He is not what we expected, mocking because we were too much in darkness to recognize His light.

So I see I am the same as my friend who is just escaping the wilderness, and we are both the same criminal, the same Gomer, the same woman at the well, the same poor and hopeless sheep in this wilderness of wolves which have nearly torn us to pieces. I see us resting under the same Cross, drinking in the same Gospel, and sharing the same Hope, for this life and the next. Oh to be part of the family of God!

I also see the criminal hanging on another cross next to Jesus. I am the other criminal hanging on the cross next to Jesus, and I deserve to be there. I see Jesus look at me and tell me that I will be with him in paradise. (See Luke 23:42-43). How can He be so gracious?

Isn’t it something to believe that God looked down on the most warped and twisted remnants of human nature and said something like those are my children, I love them and I want them back? And so Jesus came to make a way back. It’s the same message for Holy Week, for Easter, for Sundays and for every day, the message we need to hear over and over again, that Jesus came as a ransom for all.

“For He has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Col 1:13-13)

And He is STILL working. Not just on characters we read about in the Bible or in some unknown place out there where great spiritual things are happening, but right here, today, with people who are right in front of us. Can you see it? God give us the eyes!

Dear Lord, I praise you for your kindness which far surpasses my understanding. I don’t get it. May we all stand in awe of your great gift to us. I pray that you open our eyes and make us more aware of your incredible working presence among us.