Mercies New

I've been thinking about a lot of things this week. The past two days, I've been thinking a lot about God's love and grace.

I know what it is do things for people and for them to spit on your face. I hear complaints over things I've planned and worked on for days. I've given my all and been rejected. No gratitude, no polite responses,  not even a fake offer of thanks, nothing except grumbling, complaining, and the sense of entitlement.

Today I was complaining about that to Karen, when all of a sudden it hit me. That is what God hears all the time. He gets spit upon, He gets complaints and He gets mocked and He gets pride and selfishness and entitlement as a response to His sacrifice and love.

I think about Jesus sacrificing it all to come to earth as a little baby who can't even take care of itself. I think about Jesus being with His Father and choosing to give it all up for a bunch of people who complain and mock and reject Him. And He knew that is how we would respond! Yet He did it anyway!

In the face of that rejection, God still loves. He still forgives. He still looks at me and weeps over me and feels such great love for me that I cannot comprehend and He pursues me and He gives me so much grace. I am nothing like my Father; I am so far from Him that sometimes I wonder how He could want to forgive me, yet He still does. I don't understand it, I honestly don't. I cling to my sin, my false entitlement, my pride, my selfishness, my self-reliance, my independence. I hold onto it, and when God offers me His grace, I fling those things into His face. And now I have some small sense of how that feels, and it breaks my heart. God wants my heart, He wants my worship, He wants my love and thankfulness. And I have all that to give Him. I know what He has done for me, even if I can't grasp the full measure. I know His sacrifice, and yet I still spit on Him. How much worse is that than if I didn't know Him at all!

I'm so thankful that God has opened my eyes a little to this. I am so far from Him, so completely nothing. That He chooses to love me despite my nature, that He chooses to make me new, to patiently train my heart and mind to match His...my only response is awe, gratitude, and worship.