Salvation has always been a mystery to me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Not all of it, mind you.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve long stood in awe of the poignancy of God’s provision for us.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve explored the options in the avenue of my mind and can only see one way for redemption to work out: for God to sacrifice some part of himself to satisfy the wrath that his perfect holiness and justice demand.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Bt the ‘why’ part of salvation has always been a black box to me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I can see it from the outside; rotate it around and see that it works.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But exactly why it works has been beyond my comprehension.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I can see man’s fallen-nes and God’s holiness.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I can see God’s provision in the sacrifice of Jesus.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But as I look at what God has to gain from this whole deal, I’ve been stumped.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 It’s always seemed like He has a lot to lose and nothing to gain; like he sacrificed with no end or reward.<\/p>\n
Today all of that changed.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 As I sat in church and ached to hold my baby son in my arms, I finally understood.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Sometimes I hold him and he’ll look around.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In those moments, the thing I want most in the world is for him to pay attention to me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 But I understand when he doesn’t, because that’s the same way I treat God.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 He holds me and provides for me, but I don’t always take time to look in his face.<\/p>\n
We were singing a song that has the line, “You tore the veil; you made a way,” when it hit me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 God’s provision wasn’t a cold, austere one.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 God was on a rescue mission; he was desperate.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 He would do anything to reach out and grab his children, whom he loves so much more than I can love my own.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 In fact, he DID do anything and everything when he sacrificed his own life in a desperate, half-failing 11th hour run at salvation.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 And he did it all to see the look on my face.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 You know the look I mean: the one that a baby has when he looks into his daddy’s face with utter ecstatic joy simply because they have a relationship.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I think I’d do about anything for that look.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 God’s love isn’t a mystery to me anymore.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Now it’s real and it’s precious.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I need to make sure to take time to look into my heavenly daddy’s face for the simple joy that it will bring him.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Salvation has always been a mystery to me.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 Not all of it, mind you.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve long stood in awe of the poignancy of God’s provision for us.\u00c3\u0192\u00e2\u20ac\u0161\u00c3\u201a\u00c2\u00a0 I’ve explored the options in the avenue of my mind and can only see one way for redemption to work out: for God to sacrifice some part of … Continue reading Salvation and Parenthood<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[10,2,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-334","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-philosophy","category-religion","category-thoughts"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pdZlL-5o","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=334"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=334"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=334"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.andrewandlisa.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=334"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}