The Most Loving Thing

Los Angles is on fire right now.

I'm sure you've seen it on the news. We have fires all the time, but this one seems worse, and a little out of season actually (we have a "fire season" in California, believe it or not). I went to work two days ago to find this as I skated in:

The first day of the Malibu fire

And then as I worked, I watched the fires -- like actually saw flames that must have been several stories tall, because they were about twenty miles away -- flare up like dragon heads all day long, until night looked like a volcano erupting:

On the second day of it, a friend at work said, "All it would take is a little rain to fix this," and he's right. So why doesn't God just send rain? I've certainly prayed for it, as I'm sure many also have. Instead, it's dry as a bone and windy. 

Why?

I work with a guy who is a staunch atheist, and we've had a few talks about God and the problems of the world. He seems pretty hung up on all the bad that exists, and how a good God could let any of that happen. It's not a new struggle, and there have been tons of books written about it on both sides of the argument. I can offer some theological explanations, but I think that the longer I've gotten to know God, the more sheer goodness I've experienced, and that that might be a thing that has to be just that: an experience. You have to know it for yourself, which seems to trump all the theological proof I can throw at anyone. So I mostly just listen in these talks.

But lately, I've been reading this book called Afraid of All the Things, written by a relative of some good friends of ours, and I came across this passage:

"We get the peaceful privilege of looking back at a cross that tells us who we are, so that when we look ahead, we know where we'll be. We get the gift of knowing that it's not up to us or up to a lucky hand to make things right. We can actually rest, relieved, knowing that nothing we've done makes God love us any less and nothing we can do will make God love us any more. We don't decide our safeness. And we've already seen the full measure of love from the One who does."

The book is about fears (obviously) and this particular chapter is bringing up Job from the Bible, who had everything, and then lost everything, yet still trusted that God was in control -- though he expressed his pain with honesty, which I think is important. 

I'm really enjoying this book. Please check it out!

That last part of that quote is what really struck me though: "we've already seen the full measure of love." It hit me that maybe God has already done the most loving thing He could possibly do when He sent His son to sacrifice himself for us, just so we can have relationship with Him forever. Like maybe God knew that our eternal life is so much more significant than this temporal one, that sending Jesus was the absolute best thing to do to show that He loved us. After all:

"'For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,' declares the LORD. 'As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.'" (Isaiah 55:8-9)

If that is true, then that means that, even when the world is dark and terrible, and storms wipe out cities and people die and my own town is burning relentlessly, fixing those problems might not be the most loving thing He could do. He's already done the most loving thing, and if He never does another thing for me, it doesn't mean He loves me any less.

That might not be the easiest thing to swallow, especially walking through tribulation -- and I write this as someone who didn't just lose his house to a seemingly random fire -- but I think it's worth noting and ruminating on. As I tried to let that idea sink into my heart today, I couldn't help but feel grateful. What a good God we have, who valued me so much that he lived a hard life on this harsh planet just so that we could live a forever life together. 

It really is amazing, if you think about it.