Life, Death, & In Between

Sometimes I fall into dark places

Of hopelessness and despair,

And then ponder death:

Would there be freedom there?

Are You Here, God?

     This is the scene: you’re at church, surrounded by your peers, there’s music playing, and you’re having an amazing time singing to God.  Your hands are raised, there are tears in your eyes, and you feel like God is right there with you.  It’s a very real, very spiritual experience.  You want this feeling, this presence of God, to stay with you forever.  In your heart of hearts, you tell Him that you want to be with Him always.  Then the music stops, and you lower your hands, say goodbye to a few friends, get in the car and go home.  That night, you might say your prayers before going to bed, but that sense of God’s immediate presence is fading.  Then you get up and go to school or work the next day, and it’s gone.  You still believe in and love God, but He feels distant.  Though you want to believe that He is, it doesn’t seem as though God’s directly involved in anything going on in your life.

This God

    I think any Christian would agree that Jesus’ death on the cross was kind of important.  After all, His death and resurrection are what we base our lives around.  We believe that when He suffered and died on that rough beam of wood, He took the punishment for the sin of every individual, thereby allowing us to escape that punishment and be reconciled to God, whom we had been alienated from as a result of our sin.  That’s pretty amazing.  I mean, for us it is a sweet deal.  We get freedom, and life, and forgiveness, and all God gets is us.  But then, He’s pretty crazy about us, so I guess it works out.  I’d just like to talk about how crazy it is that Jesus, of all people, suffered what He did.