Monthly Archives: May 2014

A Father’s Heartbreak

alone-96856_150Several years ago, as I was leaving a Burger King parking lot with my teenage son, Andrew, I carefully looked left and then right.  Seeing that the way was clear, I pulled out and turned left onto the hilly road.  Seemingly out of nowhere, a car whizzed by just in front of us, missing a violent full-speed collision by a mere few feet.  As I caught my breath, I realized that a split second had meant the difference between Andrew living a normal life and Andrew either being killed or possibly paralyzed for life.  I quietly drove home, pondering what an unimaginable heartbreak I would have faced, a heartbreak that no amount of success or happiness elsewhere could have overcome.

A few weeks later, after I had said good-night to Andrew, I quietly returned to his bedroom, peeking in the door at his still body as he drifted off to sleep.  Suddenly his left leg moved slightly, and I flashed back to that near collision.  I quietly thanked God for protecting Andrew and for sparing me the incomprehensible anguish of losing my only son, whom I love with every fiber of my being.

And then it dawned on me.  God the Father was not spared the unimaginable heartbreak of losing His only Son.  The One whom I was thanking experienced that very heartbreak.  And He experienced it because of me, because of my sin, and because of His unfathomable love for me.  He sacrificed His only Son to pay the penalty that I owe but cannot pay myself.

And then I wondered what it would be like to sacrifice my son so that others could live – only to have no one tell anyone about it.  Is that what we do when we fail to obey Jesus’ Great Commission (see Matthew 28:18-20)?  Is that how God the Father feels when we don’t seek to proclaim the Good New and make disciples?

The Immeasurable Value of You

ValueDid you ever stop and consider your value and worth to your Creator?  Exactly how much are you worth to Him?

To answer this question, let’s examine three different ways to measure worth and value:

   Your comparative worth (that is, how much are you worth compared to other things)

   Your exchange value (that is, how much would one give in exchange for you)

   Your purchase price (that is, how much would one pay to purchase you)

Your comparative worth is described in Zechariah 2:8 (NLT), where people are identified as the LORD Almighty’s “most precious possession.”  To gain a little perspective on this declaration from God, consider the expanse of His creation.  Our planet is part of the Milky Way galaxy, which contains more than 100 billion stars and is more than 5 trillion miles across.  Scientists have discovered that the visible universe may contain approximately 100 billion similar galaxies.  Within the great expanse of these 100 billion galaxies, the value of human souls, including your own, surpasses that of anything else in the entire universe.  The Creator of all that exists declares that you are His most precious possession (Zechariah 2:8 NLT).  He declares that you are His masterpiece (Ephesians 2:10 NLT).  That’s a mighty strong endorsement!

Your exchange value is described in Mark 8:36-37, where Jesus asks, “What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, yet forfeit his soul?  Or what can a man give in exchange for his soul?”  According to the U.S. Department of Commerce, the gross domestic product (the market value of the nation’s output of goods and services) was approximately $17.4 trillion last year.  And according to the Central Intelligence Agency, the gross world product (the total value of all goods and services produced within all the nations of the world) was approximately $71.8 trillion last year.  According to Jesus, if you gain all of this but forfeit your own soul, you have made a foolish exchange.  Your soul is worth far more than $71.8 trillion, or any other monetary figure one can come up with.

Your purchase price is described in 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, where Paul declares that “You do not belong to yourself, for God bought you with a high price.”  Our purchase price is the One who brought all that exists into existence, Jesus Himself.  God’s purchase of us at the price of Jesus’ shed blood on the cross declares the matchless value God places on you – and on all human souls.

Such is your surpassing value and worth! 

God declares that you are His masterpiece, you are worth more than $71.8 trillion or any other monetary figure, and you are worth the purchase price of God’s Son. 

So the next time you’re tempted to devalue yourself, remember how much your Creator values you and let that define how much you value yourself.

P.S.  And just maybe, together, we can also try to remember that such is the worth and value of every human with whom we will ever lock eyes!

Stuck in Time

TimeA few weeks ago, when I found myself dwelling a little too much in the past and extrapolating a little too much into the future and not living to the hilt right where I was in the present, these words flowed onto paper:

 

Stuck in Time

 

We’re stuck in time – we can’t go back and recreate our past;

We must find peace abiding in the shadows it has cast.

Its sorrows may have slowly crept, its joys sped by too fast,

But what has been has forged within sweet memories that last.

 

We’re stuck in time – we can’t advance to any future date.

What dreams will be reality?  What fears will become fate?

The answers may come early, or to us they may seem late –

What’s yet to be we’ll clearly see, but for it we must wait.

 

We’re stuck in time – we cannot live except in what’s right now;

To dwell within the past or future, time will not allow.

So with each passing day life brings, I will seek somehow

To give my best with which I’m blessed – until time takes a bow!