No, I Won't

How many times is it have we said - I won't. I shan't. I will not. NO. And end up remorsefully whispering, I'm so sorry... If only I'd known...

Enough articles, songs and movie clips abound about appreciation. How we must learn never to take the people around us for granted. How death, being the great equalizer to the old and young, to the rich and poor, to the educated and not, to the healthy and sick, to the oppressor and oppressed, comes when our hearts least expect it. And then when it does come, that is the end of the line. Efforts to resuscitate broken relationships, to heal broken rifts, to establish broken dreams would then be futile. The dead see not, hear not or feel not. 

But there is Someone whom we take for granted more than anything and everyone: He is Jesus. Is it because we know He won't ever die again, our Eternal God? Is it because we know He won't ever refuse us forgiveness whenever we fall on our knees and beg for His mercy? Is it because we know that He is just and that grace will never be withheld from us regardless of how we walk this Christian pilgrimage, to the sanctuary of His many mansions?

Rather than look at an Eternal God, why not look at the wounds of His feet, how those feet took form in a manger as a flesh and blood child that hungered, thirsted and hurt only to grow to wander without a home and be pierced on a cross? Rather than look at a Forgiving God, why not look at the hurt in His holy eyes as we sin again and again with a soul whose healing only requires we truly surrender to His rule? Rather than look at a Just God, why not look at a God whose mercy required no one, not even humanity, but chose to save it even as it knew the hurt and unbelief and anger that it would undeservedly receive... whose magnificence required the eternal attendance of angels but chose to be robed with suffering... whose holiness is beyond words but chose to be a curse for us?

The next time God whispers in our ears, let the ember in our hearts surrender. Don't let it gaze at His holiness, His loveliness and His magnificence and say, No, I won't. Instead...

Lord, I shall.