I learned a lot of things last night. For starters, I was taught that being willing and obedient doesn't make me any less of a sinner. I still miss the mark and I would still be as lost and broken without God's infinite and rich grace. In fact, when I cease to live in constant dependence on the saving blood of Christ, I am doomed to act out of my humanness, which on its own is supremely mucked up.
I was thinking about the gross ugly things of this world while I sat on the bay front last night. There was a cockroach crawling around, and I thought, "Man, why would God ever make something so ugly, without any purpose, without any real significance to me (I'm still really selfish). Why would God make a creature that can survive pretty much anything, but really only spreads diseases and annoys mankind?"
Then I thought, "Why does God make anything bad or seemingly useless? Why is there any ugliness in the world? Why are there really really bad people?" and, "Why does God allow me, a creature trying to do good for him still mess up, still sin, still act with ugliness, selfishness, and thoughtlessness?"
The only conclusion I could come to was this. And this may be more of a theory than a truth, I'm not sure, but it makes a lot of sense to me.
God, who we understand to be infinitely powerful and infinitely good allows all of this sin because he is so powerful and so good that he can use all of the terrible things of this world to proclaim his name more and to demonstrate just how holy, how awesome, how incredible he actually is.
What shows more power: making things good and keeping it that way, or making things good, allowing them to get shitty, and then using the rubbish of our lives to proclaim his goodness even more than the initial creation? I'd vote the second.
The more powerful, more glorious thing, is to take the ugly and make it beautiful. Take the sinner and justify him.
As I kept watching the roach, I realized just how much energy God had to put into it; its got a crazy hard shell, intense abdomen, antennae... , etc., on top of that, each roach has different DNA! God spent time creating that cockroach. God spent time creating Adolf Hitler. God spent time creating me. I don't know what goodness or beauty will be brought out by me or my life, how big or small it will be, but I do know that one way or another, it will proclaim the glorious richness of the amazing saving grace that can only come from the all good, all powerful God of all things.
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