The Bottom Line: Thoughts on Redemption and Living

I believe the overriding theme of life is redemption; God redeeming mankind and reconciling his relationship with us. I think that at the end of the day, that is the bottom line. Logically, it would make sense that redemption, then, would be (dare I say should be) the most important focus and drive of my daily living.

What does that mean? What does that look like?

Well, if you think about it, God's whole goal in redemption is to reconcile us to himself. He did what needed to be done in order to make that happen; Christ gave his life on the cross. Therein lays the opportunity for reconciliation to take place. Now all he has to do is convince us to love him back. Harder than it sounds, I'm sure. How do you get all these billions of human beings running around on earth, completely preoccupied with themselves to acknowledge you and enter into a love relationship with you?

Now I'm sure God is completely capable of twisting our selfish little hearts into loving him, but clearly that's not his desire. It would seem to me that he genuinely wants us to consciously choose to love him back. Having already been reconciled to him, I can honestly say that it is his unconditional, overwhelmingly pure love for me that has won me over. As selfish as that sounds, it really is his love for me that makes me want to love him back.

What about those who aren't yet reconciled to him? How does he get them to know and understand the depth of his love? I'm afraid it comes down to you and me, my friend. Since I know and understand God's love and how amazing it is (although I'm constantly growing in the depth of that understanding), I am one who can relate his message to my fellow human beings. Unfortunately for the selfish side of me, I actually have to love you.

Seriously though, I'm sure God can reveal himself in whatever way he wants, say a sunset or a fantastic nature walk through the mountains. But even that will inevitably lead to human contact in which questions are asked and true love is experienced. Nature can't love you back. People can. God can.

So I'm finally starting to understand that this whole concept of community and relationship is much more than a social networking frenzy. People are important because I am God's message of love to the world. If at the end of the day I get nothing checked off my to-do list, yet I spent time engaging the people around me and loving them how God has loved me, I have accomplished far greater than anything on my task list.

I think God places and allows people to cross my path for that very reason. I think it's time that I stop being bothered and annoyed by people who are infringing on 'my' time and distracting me from 'work'. I think it's time that I look up, look them in the eye and realize that God has allowed our paths to cross so that I can engage them in the kind of love that he has engaged me in, with the hope that somehow their experience with me will point them to Him.