Between the Lines

I feel like I jumped the gun on writing my first post yesterday without fully explaining some things about what’s going on here.

The title “Between the Lines” has significance to the subject matter at hand. A few years ago I saw a picture. It was a picture of Jesus shown from behind. In the picture, you see his back, streaked with blood from the whips he took at the hands of the Roman soldiers, on his head, a crown of thorns. At the top of the picture, there was one simple question: “Do you know if Jesus loves you?” Underneath, one simple answer: “Read between the lines.“

Since I saw this picture, that phrase has become sort of a motto of mine. There are times where we question God’s love for us. We go through some difficult times in life. Divorce, money problems, losing a job, failing school, drugs, even suicide… Sometimes it’s hard to see the love that God has for us through all this mud that covers our eyes. But at those times, all it takes is to remember that there was a man, God in the flesh, who put himself through more pain than we could ever imagine despite the fact that he could have saved himself at any time…just to save us from sin and show his love for us.

So, when times get tough…how do we know God loves us?

Read between the lines…

Like A Child

Over the last five days or so, my parents and I have been watching my nieces while my sister and her husband went on a trip to Florida. I assume they just needed a break from the daily rigors of parenthood, and after spending five days with my nieces, I can understand it.

I love them dearly and we had a lot of fun while they were here. We went swimming nearly everyday, saw the fireworks, ran amok around the house. What with the horserides and the piggy-back rides and the constant jumping onto my shoulders and the screaming in the ear and the endless requests for more milk, more juice, more ice cream, more Dorito’s (or as the oldest calls them, “burritos”), more cartoons, more, more, more!…with all that over the weekend, today I was bushed and a little bit on edge.

 My back killed from having the kids jump all over me all weekend and I just could not take another piggy-back ride. But every time I told the girls not to jump on me, not to scream in my ear, not to make a mess, not to fight…I was simply ignored. At times, I was even told that she could jump on me if she wanted and I would just have to deal with it.

Ignorance…

It doesn’t mean stupid. It simply means that we ignore what is right in front of us. We ignore what we are being told. We doing something we are advised not to do despite the obvious consequences. Amaiya wants to stand on one foot on the arm of the couch. I tell her to sit down or she’ll fall. She ignores me and falls. That is ignorance.

You know, we are told to have a childlike faith, but for some reason, I get the feeling this is not what God had in mind. But I do feel like this is how we are with God sometimes. God has provided us with a hard copy, fool-proof how-to guide for life. The Bible tells us everything we need to make it through life. It even gives us concrete examples of people throughout history. It tells us what we should and should not do and gives us consequences for our disobedience. And yet we still constantly turn our nose up at it and tell God that we know better than Him about how to live our lives. “Honor thy father and thy mother and you will live long in the land of the Lord.” No, I think my parents are unfair and irrational and I can make my decisions for myself. I think I’ll party, forget school, forget church, have sex, do drugs, etc. etc. Why? Because it’s more fun? Because we’re ignorant…

We are ignorant and it’s about time that we all started to pay a little more attention to someone who knows a little bit about what they are doing.

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