March 31, 2010

• Can We Fix It?

  No, not really.

  Bob the Builder aside, There are some things in life that we just can't fix, and the more we try, the worse it gets. I was going to plug in a bad analogy of a card I made while participating in a scrapbooking party (don't ask me how I got there. Please.) but I'll spare the details. Suffice to say that the card ended up looking like a flag, and to top it off, it opened the wrong way. It all started with a small mistake that I thought I could handle and cover up. (Maybe it's because I shouldn't have been scrapbooking in the first place. Although the first one was just fine.)

  We can't handle some of our mistakes. Shoot, we can't handle a vast majority of our mistakes. But we walk around, and what a sight might we be to the angels... smiling soot-faced children, thinking that smearing our faces with vaseline will make it all go away.

  God saves.

  At this point, that means more to me than something theological, something that happened on a cross a long time ago, something that people say that is more like a greeting than a statement of significance. Jesus saving me means that He is able to heal the broken parts of me that I still hold close. As a humanity obsessed with perfection, we rarely want to show our scars and our disfigurations... and yet He who sees all sees them too and loves us, not in spite of them, not because of them, but with the whole package.

  Jesus saving me means that He has rerouted me from a path of winding, turning, and confusing roads to a path that is lit by the source of light Himself. It means that I can choose. It means that I don't have to be penalized for the ruin that is my life. It means that at the tollbooth of the devil, I don't have to pay. He saves me.

  And what of all the broken pieces? Or all the pieces we don't want to think are broken? All the things that we think will be ok with a little bit of glue, a little bit of duct tape, a little bit of chewing gum? I am continually surprised by the brokenness of mankind. No one has been exempt. And yet, we all think the other has it all put together.

  But self-esteem will not hold it together. Putting on a strong face, a mean face, a masked face, will not hold it together. Pep talks and new-age mantras will not hold it together. Shoe strings and orthopedics and therapy sessions will not hold it together... Cheap love and false promises and 1,000 friends on Facebook will not hold it together.

  In the end, we are broken, and the only one who will mend us is the one who made us in the first place. The One who knows the rules, the inside gears, the kind of rubber that was used in the First Model, the special grease that works so well on that particular spot, and the tools that are to be used to make it all happen...

  Often it boils down to the simple steps of obedience. As a little child, we must learn the first steps. Trust and obey... but the big boys always want to do things on their own... But they, like all of us, will learn that there is only One Gate. One Physician. One Saviour of All Mankind. And it is not us.

  We can't fix it, but God can. He is mighty to save.

  What does God as a Savior mean to you?

  • 9:30 pm
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