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The purpose of this blog is to encourage your personal, daily walk with Jesus Christ, by seeing Him through the eyes of Mark Rodriguez. Updates will be made regularly so please subscribe. Most posts are taken from Mark's private journals or written by his mother unless otherwise noted.

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

Unfair


6-19-12 

Right now, I’m staring at the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.  I’m 40,000 feet above the ground, and it’s 7:48 PM.  I’m on a flight from Miami to Washington D.C., coming home from the two-week Nicaragua trip. 
It’s a sunset.  Rays of light fill my eyes and blast the sky and the Atlantic Ocean below with golden light.  There is no land in sight, only water and sky.  Puffy clouds of all shapes and sizes dot the scene far below, lit on fire by yellow beams.  The ocean miles beneath me is laughing joyfully painted with the sun’s reflection.  Shadows are cast across the canvas by the sun exploding over the clouds...

...I’m staring into that blinding light right now, while what I should be looking at is utter, crippling darkness.   “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Christ Jesus our Lord.”

What I’m talking about here is grace.  I did not choose God, I chose me.  I chose my way, so that I may have fleeting pleasures that have no worth.



But God chose me. 



He looked at me and didn’t find something about me that was better than other people.  I was no more righteous than any other man, because we are not righteous in ourselves.  God bestowed righteousness upon me, though he found no merit or love for him.  God ripped me from the grasp of Satan and said to me that He is so much better, so much brighter than anything I could ever comprehend. 



And he was so, so, so right. 



My dreams can’t rival this.  My deepest thoughts cannot create anything as incredible as the scene that’s bestowed up me.



I’m wondering right now: If this broken, fallen world can have this much of God’s beauty in it, what will the New Earth be like?  An Earth purged of selfishness, of corruption, of pain?  I’ll definitely need a new body in order to stand before that because I’m pretty sure the one I’m in now would explode if I saw anything more beautiful than what I’m already looking at. 



All I know is this: Trouble will come.  I will cry, I will hurt, I will break.  But the Lord of the sky will always, ALWAYS be by my side.  He will always be amazing me beyond the boundaries I try to put Him in. 



I just can’t believe the Lord of the sunset loves ME.  I mean, of course I believe it, but it’s just so….so unfair.  Fair equals me never seeing a sunset.  But “the beauty of grace is that it makes life not fair.”  I am so, so thankful for that.