For I am the least of the apostles and do not even deserve to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace to me was not without effect. No, I worked harder than all of them—yet not I, but the grace of God that was with me. Whether, then, it is I or they, this is what we preach, and this is what you believed (I Corinthians 15:9-11).
No unsteady tremble in his voice, no quacking hesitation, this same man boldly declares that nothing can separate us from God's love. Limits do not exist. Using the rhetorical device of a meriah, he juxtaposes the extremes of two ends of the spectrum: a literal contrast that by their dimensions suggests all that remains in their in-between: height/depth; life/death/ angels and depths are counterpoised:
For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord (Romans 8:38-39).
in the same vein, concentration camp survivor Corrie ten Boom exults, "there is not pit that God's love is not deeper still." Nothing in all of creation can unravel God's love for us when we just can not see the other side of the pain yet. Rejected and blind, George Matheson wrote these word, "O love that will not let me go. I rest my weary soul in thee. I give the back the life I owe That in thine ocean depths its flow may richer fuller be."
What will the Hand pen? Pain, loss, peace, joy? It is in yielding the pen to the Great Scribe that best story is ever written. Few of us would worry if Charles Dickens or Shakespeare aspired to write the tale of our lives, but we are want to allow the Greatest Author to write His story over our lives. The Apostle Paul trusted God to rewrite the abysmal tale of his life and what a story God wrote. One full of tragedy and pain, but exultant with triumph and grace."For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them "(Ephesians 2:10).
Most of us have heard the statement,"Don't put a period where God has placed a comma."
We know that a period ends a statement, a paragraph, or is the final thought of a lengthy treatise. The comma is a mere pause, a breath, a rhetorical function that can be a contradiction to a prior conceived idea. How many times has life handed you an however, ? More is to follow where you thought it might simply end. Paul's life was such an example, the man who sent Christians to their deaths and left children orphans, God chose to be a spokesman to the Gentiles- the goyim to share the glory of the Messiah.
God knows who needs the second chance; where I have placed a period, he makes it into a conjunctive adverb and a comma: However, Jesus.... Despite, the crowd with stones in their hands, Jesus bent down and wrote on the ground. Just as He did for Paul, He gives us second chances and encourages us to the same.
Always in need of the Second Chance,
MJ
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