Redemption is so beautiful.

So far, my early morning (ugh) government and politics class has taught me this:

1. I couldn't really care any less than I already do about how government is set up or how amendments can be added to the Constitutions.
2. The entirety of the actual lecture could be done in 45 minutes if the professor would stop going off on tangents.
3. I can keep my sanity during those tangents by doing something else (i.e. writing, thinking, doodling, eating PopTarts). 

My issue today was that I started gazing off and thinking, and I would jot down a few thoughts every now and then in the margins next to Alexander Hamilton (who was a complete self-absorbed slimeball, really). I came home, started typing up my notes, and ran across those little sentences spattered here and there. And I have no idea how they connect or if they even connect and they are incredibly underdeveloped, but it's either channel surf through daytime television (woohoo soap operas and talk shows), wash dishes (um....) or play with those little baby thoughts. I'm going to do the latter because I can sit in front of the spaceheater whilst doing it.

There's that maxim that so many people cling to when it comes to really throwing your heart into Jesus' lap - "I'm a good person. I don't do bad things, so I'll get to heaven." And I know and you know that that's a far cry from the truth that absolutely nothing that we could ever do could ever save us. But it's that first part that I find intriguing. "I'm a good person." How does one define that? What makes someone a good person? By today's culture standards, if a person doesn't drink, doesn't smoke or do any drugs, gets their homework done, obeys their parents, has never been arrested, doesn't impregnate anyone or become pregnant themselves, has aspirations, never cusses, and goes to church on Sunday in pressed pants then they're a good person. That list isn't written down anywhere, but everyone adheres to it. But really... even if you fit that mold, does that make you a good person? When you think about it, nobody came out of the womb thinking to themselves, "Oh, I'm not going to drink or shoot up or have illicit sex or become incarcerated! Ewww, no." Look at any two-year-old! We are hard-wired to want to break rules. Parents train their kids to behave, to follow the rules. To put it another way, parents train their kids to be good. They teach us what good means. We all had to be taught to be good. It doesn't come naturally. If good came naturally, then what would the point of police be, for instance? But face it, everyone drives a little bit differently when there's a cop in the rearview mirror. We're not naturally good. We want to bend the rules.

And if someone bucks that system, does that make them a bad person? Is someone who has never committed murder better or more developed or something that someone who is on death row for genocide? Some book I've read somewhere made a really going point with that, and I wish I could remember what book it was so I could look this up and do it justice. Anyways, Rwanda. I think we all know what happened there. There was this huge political power struggle between the Tutsi and Hutu tribes following the assassination of the president of Rwanda, and long story short, within a mere hundred days following that assassination, approximately 800,000 people were mass murdered. Eight hundred thousand. That was 20% of the Rwandan population. And almost every woman of the Tutsi tribe was raped. Multiple times. Of course, there was media coverage, and people would have a hard time wrapping their minds around it. I mean, I can't! Oh, and throw in the fact that in all actuality, genocide is happening all throughout Africa. Let's take Congo. There are eight tribes in Congo, and each one is at war with the other seven, killing and raping numbers that have already surpassed two million. And you have to wonder initially how people could do something like that. Then ask yourself - could you do something like that? All of us would quickly say no, of course not, I couldn't murder or rape people. But what's the difference between the war-ravaged Africans and the comfortable middle-class American? They're human. We're human. Why do we and how can we view ourselves as any better than them? So either yes, we could murder and rape, or no, but then there's alot of explaining to do because that would be implying that we're more evolved than them, that we're "better" humans. And that's ridiculous. So yes. We - you, me, everyone - are capable of the atrocities that we see in the media.

 

I hate that. And that is our sin nature, right there. Sometimes the sin nature is hard to see because we've grown up in this society of checks and balances (ugh, stupid government terminology...) where if you don't do good, you get punished. But really, that doesn't make the people who don't break the rules good. It makes them subdued. And the fact that that gnawing sin nature is inherently there makes us have to face the facts - the problem with the world isn't power mongering or hunger or murder or politics. The problem is us. The problem is me. The problem is the fact that I am hard-wired to want to do wrong. Doing good and moral things is like trying to swim against the current.

But here's another truth - we are designed for good. That's why all of the wrong that we do leaves us broken and sputtering for air. We can't thrive on wrong. We can hardly scrape by on wrong. God made us as beautiful pinnacles of His creation, and He didn't create us to run on wrong. The only way for us to live is to find something to combat that sin nature that we have, and that sin nature is powerful, so what we combat it with has to be epic, and we can't do it ourselves because we want that sin nature, even if we don't want to admit it. We can be taught good, but that only gets us so far. We have to be changed. Our hearts have to be completely revamped. Our mindset has to be replaced.

And that's where Jesus comes in.

Jesus is so beautiful, grace is so beautiful, love is so beautiful.
Redemption is so beautiful.

God comes in and soothes us. He sees our self-inflicted hurt and pain, He sees the damage that we do even though we don't mean to, and He loves on us. We are His children! I don't have kids, but I have heard from so many parents that one of the hardest things is seeing your child be in pain, and I believe it. Imagine how much it hurts God, the absolute perfect father! His heart breaks, and He comes and hugs us and heals us. And if we will admit that we are a mess, if we tell God that our heart is a wreck and ask Him to take it - oh, He will! He is the most powerful - so much more powerful than any wrong we have in us. And He transforms it! He fills it with a Spirit and love that is so incredible and so unlike anything the world could ever offer!!

Our sin nature can't win against that, against God's creation thriving on Him! It is unchangeable. It is a once-and-for-all switch of direction.  And as much as our heart ached when it was trying to live with that sin, how much more does our heart explode with joy when it's been made complete?! Like I said, it's beautiful.