Has it occurred to you?

Tonight, in the midst of an encouraging conversation, a thought floated through my mind:


Everything we experience in this life is a shadow of that which is eternal— who God is, the nature of His message, what He has saved us from, and the inexhaustible expansiveness of His sacrificial love.


.........Huh.

Love

Suffering

Beauty

Marriage

Birth

Growth

Death

Air
Bodies

Fruit

Baptism

Light

(this was my list after about two minutes of pondering— it is not exhaustive.)

— — —

It occurred to me that the things in my life are glimpses of God, meant to instill within me a longing to be like my Creator and be in His presence. Which is all fine and dandy, but how do I break that down into small enough pieces that I can apply it to my life today?


Gear up, Christ-followers:


Someone wronged me this week. Not unusual— this happens to everyone around the world every single day. But it's easy to get upset and feel like that person owes me an apology. I feel somehow entitled to being treated with kindness, fairness and compassion. Erroneous, unrestrained thoughts tear through my mind: I would never do something like this to them— they need to ask for my forgiveness— how could they possibly not see that what they did is wrong?


The truth, if I'm being honest with myself, is that I constantly fail and hurt and sin against everyone in my life, often without even realizing it. I'm an incredibly flawed human being and I'm not inherently entitled to any manner of kindness— no one is. Yet I've been forgiven and cleansed of my all my sin by a perfect, loving Creator. When I look at the ways people hurt me in light of the innumerable sins I've committed against God, my pain is a fading echo of what sounds like justice. And even more so, when I compare the sheer volume of God's mercy and forgiveness, it seems too foolish to comprehend that I shouldn't be able to forgive anyone for ANYTHING they've done to me. 


In the midst of hardships I compare my trials to the suffering of Christ. All at once, the things that troubled me so much are discovered to be feeble and decrepit. In view of the incomprehensible grace of an eternal God, it seems obvious that unabated forgiveness should flow freely from my life.


Oh, how I long to live with an eternal perspective.
Oh, how I long to be worthy of my name.