Rick and Monique

Wednesday, September 12, 2007

The Chauffeur

Monique and I were having devotions together. We read for awhile and talked about revenge and forgiveness. Monique brought up one of my past sins this morning and it was a painful and mortifying memory. But that's not the end of the story. In essence, the point is she could've been vengeful towards her husband or she could've forgiven her husband. She forgave me. I didn't do anything to merit her forgiveness...in fact, once my deed was done, time whisks it away. One doesn't get it back. There's no retracing your steps to redeem the sin (as a caveat, can we redeem the world for Christ or are we working and he is redeeming?). On that note...I can't choose to be forgiven. I, the offender, cannot will the offended to forgive me. I cannot beat the offended over the head, I cannot shake forgiveness out of the offended. I must wait for it to happen.

John 6:44 says that no one comes to the Father unless he is drawn. Romans 9-11 are poignant chapters about the forgiving mercy of God and the righteous Power of God.

I won't come to conclusions for you...I intend to be a bit cryptic...Psalm 19 discusses the Power of and the Convicting Words of God. It takes more than 100 billion years to cross the entire Universe (or so it Scientists Say), but it only takes 1 second to see God (Romans 1), the creator of more than 100 billion light years of Universe...isn't that amazing? And yet, we won't see him unless we are drawn to Him. Vanity has it's privileges...

We've always believed we could control both good and Evil...Adam and Eve had it in their heads that they could right? The problem wasn't the consumption of fruit, but the vanity of the mere attempt at tapping into or harnessing God's power. But, know what? We can't. We simply can't jump into our Angelic Mercedes and drive to our Heavenly Mansion just as Eve and Adam couldn't just bite into a piece of fruit. We have to be formed, found and forgiven.

"MY GOD MY GOD! WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?!!!! Do you know what those words mean? They mean we aren't driving to our Heavenly mansion ... the words mean we're being chauffeured.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Question...Did you go to Sioux Falls Christian? Did you know Anne Van Raalte?

Gina said...

I love this...the word picture of being chauffered is beautiful.

lauri said...

You sure can put words together well, dear cousin...I like that in a person...