Insight for the Journey

I believe that gratitude is the mother of all virtues.  And, quite frankly, I have a lot to be grateful for.  But I am most grateful for the fact that nothing can separate me from God’s love, and that His grace keeps reaching out to me.  The security and comfort that brings keeps my heart singing even in my worst days.

When the Golden Gate Bridge was being built back in the 1930s, during the first half of construction, over a dozen men fell to their deaths.  So they stopped construction, and suspended a huge net under the superstructure.  During the last half of construction only six people fell, but none of them died.  Amazingly, the supervisor said that the work proceeded at 25% greater efficiency.  Having the net under them did not make the men careless.  It made them more confident.

When we understand there is a net under us called grace, we become more secure, more joyful, more courageous and effective in the Christian life.  I guess it’s possible for some demented man to fall down into that net, and then crawl over to the edge, and push aside anybody who wanted to rescue him, and then jump over the edge.  And it certainly is possible for people to keep exploiting God’s grace but even then, God’s love is reaching out to lift us up.  Even then, he is waiting lovingly for us to return.

When Jesus wanted to paint a picture of what God was like, he didn’t picture a tyrant with a whip in his hand.  He said, “Let me tell you a story.  A certain man had two sons, and one of them rebelled against the father’s love and went away.  The father did not restrain him.  He didn’t go into the far country, where he was living a sinful life, and yank him back.  But when the boy repented and returned, the father saw him when he was far off and ran to meet him.  And he smothered his repentant talk on his shoulder and he called out to the servants, ‘Get the robe and the ring and the shoes.  Let’s have a celebration.  My son was dead and now he’s alive.  He was lost, but now he’s found.'”  Jesus’ picture of God was not a tyrant with a whip, but a father running to forgive.

There’s an old song that chokes me up every time I hear it: 

“The love of God is greater far

than tongue or pen can ever tell. 

It goes beyond the highest star

and reaches to the lowest hell.” 

And I just love the third stanza that goes like this:

“Could we with ink the ocean fill,

and were the sky of parchment made,

and if every stalk on earth a quill,

and every man a scribe by trade,

to write the love of God above

would drain the ocean dry.

Nor could the scroll

Contain the whole

Though stretched from sky to sky.”

The word of God promises that nothing-nothing-nothing-in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.  That, my friend, is reason to give thanks!