Redemption

Israel, put your hope in the LORD,
   for with the LORD is unfailing love
   and with him is full redemption. -- Psalm 130:7

There is a massively larger cosmic organization to existence than the tiny corner of reality that we manage and call our "life."  I used to be amazed in my 20's, 30's and 40's how I could get so deeply and passionately involved in a project or an issue that, for awhile, it felt like I had been consumed by it and that was the only thing I thought, breathed, ate, and slept.  Then some small appointment or event would occur that I had to attend and I would be almost literally shocked with the "oh yeah moment" of "Wow, this has been here all along."  Life is bigger and grander than that issue/project.  Life is more.

God's redemption is the message that life is more, little human.  Life is not my behaviors, my loves, my projects, my family, my schedule, my sins, my failures, my... business.  Life is the larger cosmic organization where "my" dissolves into an us with God.  Jesus came to pull our eyes upward from our own blindness, infirmity, smallness, illness, or grief.  Putting one's eyes on Jesus allows us to see beyond ourselves and to see The Offering that God makes to lift us to a grander identity rooted in unfailing love, and fully redeemed for something larger and more magnificent than everything I thought I had or was.  God takes the smallness of our ingrown world and explodes it outward into an existence that is ripe with grandeur, assurance, and peace with Him.  May that knowledge be yours today.  Amen.