I sit down to write today because I know it’s the last opportunity I will have before the marathon cooking of the days prior to Thanksgiving. As I go to my Bible and contemplate the opening of the seals, one question continually hammers around in my head. Why? Why is all of this happening? Why is this necessary?
I consider myself a pretty loving person. I’m very comfortable talking to others about the love of God. But when people confront me with questions about the wrath of God, I struggle with that one. I don’t like the concept of wrath. I don’t like the concept of judgment. I always taught my children, I hope, to not judge others – to be loving.
After all, aren’t I a good person? Aren’t I a loving person? I love God. I try not to take his name in vain. I try to honor the Sabbath day. (Trust me I love resting.) I honor my father and my mother. I have not committed murder. I have not committed adultery. I have not stolen since I was a child lol. I confess I have been known to lie on occasion, but just the little white kind not the big ones. I try not to covet things that other people have. I know that I have erected idols in my life, but I’ve tried to repent and do better. So I’m a good person, right!?!
If you are like me at all, discussing sin is uncomfortable. We like to think of ourselves as good people – moral people. We forget our basic nature because we are “civilized.”
I’m about to share one of the most painful experiences of my entire life. I don’t divulge this lightly. I don’t want anyone to pity or feel sorry for me. I just feel very strongly that God has a message in the midst of all the suffering.
Dad began acting oddly about three weeks ago. He could not follow basic commands in physical therapy. He became increasingly more confused. He tried to escape from the rehab facility. He began forgetting. Three months ago, he was living independently with mother, caring for his own basic needs, and loving as he has always loved - with fierce loyalty and unconditional devotion.
We did not know that he had a very slow bleed in his small intestines that caused his hemoglobin, the protein in your blood that carries oxygen everywhere, to be critically low. We thought the problem had been corrected, and he was well on his way to full recovery, when he fell and broke his hip. He made it through the surgery and progressed well…until three weeks ago.
Suddenly, my devoted and caring father became constantly agitated and combative. His behavior became so erratic that additional hospitalization was required in an attempt to find medication to help him sleep and reduce his aggression.
After additional tests, the doctor gave us news no one is ever prepared to hear. The months dad’s hemoglobin stayed so critically low caused an hypoxic event. In normal people terms, his brain was deprived of oxygen for an extended period of time and now, more brain is dead than is living. No recovery will occur. The damage is irreversible, and the best that can be hoped for is that medication can be found to calm him.
All of my life my father has been that strong tree. Winds have come and storms have blown yet always he stood tall - immovable. No season came that he did not bear fruit. His limbs may have become gnarly and the bark rather ragged, but sweet, ripe nourishing fruit always blossomed ready for the picking.
Until yesterday…
He called me Nancy and then screamed for me to, “GET OUT.” He did not know Katie’s name but screamed for her to be gone too. When his kind nurse asked him if he wanted to see his family, my gentle, kind father put his finger in her face and screamed, “I have the right to beat the hell out of you!”
My father - the man who raised me, and sang me songs, and read my countless books. The man who did the same for my children exponentially multiplied by retirement. How could this screaming, swearing figure before me be my father?
More brain dead than alive…
So what is left that is living? Anger, bitterness, slander, violence, swearing, rage. Nothing I have ever witnessed in him in my 57 years. But these characteristics had to be in there all along, right? Because this is what is left?
The horror, sadness, and confusion of the situation has me asking...Why? Why is all of this happening? Why is this necessary? What I witnessed yesterday was not my father, but the personifcation of our sin nature - the expression of what can happen when more of us is dead than alive.
I don’t believe we arrive here only with our sin nature. Genesis 1:27 tells us, God created man in his own image. Gen 1:21 God saw all that He made, and it was very good indeed! 1Timothy 4: 4 For everything created by God is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving since it is sanctified by the word of God and prayer. Ephesians 2:10 For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared ahead of time for us to do. I could go on and on.
However, we can be the best human being God has ever created, but when more of us is dead than alive, what survives? We do not like to discuss our fundamental sin nature. We can try to deny it. We can say we are moral people. But many of our positive behaviors are all things we learned from either direct teaching or observation of those we interact with from infancy. However, when we strip away all of our "good" what is left? When more of us is dead than alive, sin will still remain.
Romans 3:22-26 tells us:
“The righteousness of God is through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe, since there is no distinction (between sins). For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are justified freely by His grace through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus. God presented Him ..by his blood, through faith, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint passed over the sins previously committed. God presented Him to demonstrate His righteousness at the present time, so that He would be just and justify the one who has faith in Jesus.”
Most people have heard the we all sin and fall short of the glory of God part, but we never stop to consider that God has shown restraint and not passed judgment on our sin nature. Instead, he sent His son to die a cruel death on a cross as a living sacrifice so that if we believe in Him, we can become sinless in the sight of God. But God, who is rich in mercy, because of his great love that he had for us, made us alive with Christ even though we were dead in sin. You are saved by grace! Ephesians 2:4-5
But God’s patience has a limit. There is a time frame for when He will judge all of His creation. This is why we will study the Seven Seals. This is why understanding the love of God as well as our dire need for Him to rescue us from sin is so important. So as we journey into the breaking of the seals, don’t let your pride hide your true nature from you. All of us need Jesus.
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