Suffering... Where's the Passion?!

Alright. I had no idea that God would set me up for this one. He's so awesome though, that He works things out before I get to them.

Today has been quite a day. We took the car to get looked at, and found that for now, $80 later that the reason it cut off was that the battery cables were loose and corroded. Nice.

I then had to go steal my sister from work, since she has been having some issues and I really thought she needed to go to the doctor. We were at Patient First for probably at least 3 hours this morning/early AM. Now she has an appointment with a specialist tomorrow, and I am going with her to that as well. Ummm...

I am taking all these crazy classes and everything was pretty much due for this week by midnight Monday. I had put it all off.... typical. So I am plugging away at that.

I get a call from my mom that she had to take my uncle to the ER. At that point they had been sitting there for two hours. Apparently it was extremely busy in there. So, my brother was home alone. For those of us who know his care needs, we know that he can be alone for a little while, but when he needs things that are out of reach, there is a problem. I got over there about 8:00, woke him up for meds, took him some dinner, and said I would stay until my mom got back.

So I am over at my Mom's trying to get things done before the magic cutoff at midnight, and of course her laptop has Windows Vista and the program for my online classes isn't compatible. That was fun, but it worked out. I started to get really worried by midnight, so when I woke up my brother for the midnight round of fun and excitement (yeah... he has to take medicine and take care of things every four hours.. everyday) we decided that I should call Upper Chesapeake. I finally had the operator figure out where they were. Still in the ER. Yeah, they went there riiight after his 3pm doctor's appointment.

I told her to call me in 2 hours, unless she'd be home before that. Well, I heard the door opening a little after 2 and woke up from my "cat nap." Turns out he was still in a holding room because there were no beds, but they are keeping him at least 24 hours because they hooked him up to an EKG. They're running a bunch of tests... he never does well with anything where he has to be away from home.

So, I came home, and Ben's asleep because he is determined that he is going to go to his new job tomorrow. Well, I mean in a few hours :) So yeah. I am wide awake and I decided that instead of tossing and turning or watching TV in bed and keeping him awake, that I would blog.

Which brings me to the whole idea and inspiration for this blog. I picked up a copy of The Passion of Jesus Christ by John Piper on Sunday at church. I had read bits and pieces of it a few years ago when a student in a class I was substituting for at the middle school was telling me about it. I remember it being a pretty good book, so I decided that I wanted to read a reason why he died everyday and reflect and blog a little bit about how that reason affects me and what I am doing about it in my life. I think God was setting me up for a powerful time of trusting in him after my crazy day. I have to be honest and say that I feel very peaceful about all of the things that are flying out of my control, with the health of my family, our only mode of transportation acting up, and just the stress that goes along with all of this. So, I will get to my point:

ENTRY #1 - Christ suffered and died TO ABSORB THE WRATH OF GOD -

The text of this book, and others by John Piper can be found in PDF format at http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/OnlineBooks/ByTitle/

In summary, this reason for His suffering was to be the propitiation, or substitute for us paying the price for our sin. I remember when I first heard the word propitiation. It is still hard for me to wrap my mind around. If I can quote the text of the book, which is referring to Romans 3:25, "It refers to the removal of God's wrath by providing a substitute. The substitute is provided by God himself. The substitute, Jesus Christ, does not just cancel the wrath; he absorbs it and diverts it from us to himself. God's wrath is just, and it was spent, not withdrawn."

For some reason, after I read that I think about how within science they talk about how energy isn't really created, it's just transferred. The same is true here in a different sort of way. God is always fair and just. He loves us, and went so far as to send His only Son to suffer and bleed and die a horrible death on a cross for sins He never even committed. All of the things we do everyday, including the times when we do not respect God for who He is in light of his wonder. Just as energy never goes away, the fact that our sin needs to be paid for never goes away either. What does go away is the sin of the forgiven. That is a miraculous energy transfer that none of us can comprehend!

This also makes me think about how people get upset that God, even though He is so loving, would allow people to suffer or even further, to spend an eternity apart from Him. I have heard more than enough times, people saying that they are angry with God for what ever trauma they are going through at the moment and how they can't understand how people can say that He loves us when bad things happen in the world, or more specifically to them. Alright, well let's look at it this way. We're all sinners, right? We have all fallen short of God's glory. If He really wanted to be "fair" in the way we see things from a worldly perspective, He could just leave us all here for dead because we make Him mad everyday. He would have every right to just let us suffer, without hope, and bury ourselves in the hole we dig for ourselves. But, He doesn't. He sent His Son, and I still have trouble trying to put my mind around this when I step back and try to look at it from the angle that I want to understand it, not just take it for granted because I hear about it every Sunday morning. He sent HIS SON to suffer on our behalf, even while we are making a fool of Him, not appreciating Him, and selfishly forgetting about Him everyday. His Son took upon Himself the punishment for all of the wrong we do! He gave us the most important and useful gift we will ever be offered. We just need to accept it.

So, next time I hear someone talking about how they just can't believe how God would do "this" to them, I really need to not just stand back and nod or ignore what they are saying. I need to speak up. I need to let people know that while we think we are all suffering here, which we really are in all actuality, that because He paid the penalty for all of the "crap" we do everyday, we don't have to live in suffering forever. We just have to accept that gift of forgiveness, accepting that a designated hitter came in and took care of the punishment part for us.

"In this is love,not that we have loved God but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the [wrath absorbing] propitiation for our sins" (1 John 4:10).