I was on a run and getting overwhelmed by all of this because I hate to see humans classify other humans in order of importance. I do it to. We say to ourselves, "maybe I swear, but at least I don't look at porn" or "yeah, I tell a white lie here and there but I'm not breaking into a school shooting innocent children." We talk about how evil those people are and pretend like we're not just as capable of doing the same thing if left to our own devices.
I'm think about the Stanford Prison Experiment and I'm reminded of how much evil is inside each one of us by nature. Its the human condition. We have a disease and its called we think we know better than God.
And while I was running and my eyes were flooded with tears He grabbed me and loved me and spoke so sweetly to me the most comforting words I've ever heard.
Jesus came to love the sinner and the saint. He could perfectly view everyone around Him as equals, something I will never be able to fully understand. He was always surrounded by the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the outcasts and wanted the best for the ones who brutally beat Him. He didn't play favorites. He didn't love based on how "bad" their sin was. In fact, the people He grew the closest to were the ones who were at the bottom of the social ladder.
But I'm still stuck wondering how God can let things like this happen; why He allows children to be shot or planes to crash or the Holocaust to exist. Why does He let evil win so often?
In John 11, Jesus is out of town doing ministry with the disciples when He gets word that Lazarus is sick and that He needs to come home and heal him or he'll die soon. Jesus isn't really phased by this though, so He sticks around a while longer before returning. He already knows that Lazarus is dead and keeps telling the disciples that but they aren't quite getting it (probably used to Jesus speaking in parables and metaphors). When He finally gets home Mary falls at His feet, weeping, crying out that if He had only been there her brother might still be with them. And then,
Jesus wept. (vs. 35)It's the first time John records something like this, Jesus actually crying. The Jews all said "Wow, He really loved that man." But surely Jesus wasn't truly that upset that Lazarus was reunited with God, He knew that would be a better place than this world of ours. No, I think He was crying because "some of them said, 'Could not He who opened the eyes of the blind man have kept this man from dying?'" (vs. 37). He was deeply hurting for these people because they didn't believe. They didn't get it. They didn't see that His plan was so much better, even in the midst of tragedy.
He went on to raise Lazarus from the grave, and in this act so many more souls were brought from death to life. I'm going to go with His plan rocks every single time.
He is so sovereign its insane. We can NOT escape His purposes. His perfect plan may not include bringing life back to our loved ones who are no longer with us, but He remains unchanged. Still strong and still mighty and still loving and concerned with the things that trouble our hearts and torture our souls. When we trust Him, we start to "get it" and I think that is one of His favorite things.
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